A strong Tynedale side travelled to the Apollo Capital Stadium to face the Yorkshire outfit on a pitch which had been flooded the week before, resulting in a heavy playing surface for the two well matched sides to contend with, the game could have gone either way until the final 10 minutes when Tynedale sealed the win in a well contested encounter.
The home side stunned the travelling Raiders side with two tries in the opening ten minutes, breaking through some poor defensive lines to take the upper hand in the early stages of the game. When awarded a scrum 15 metres from the Harrogate line, Tynedale went for the drive and the front five of Owen Loughead, Jonny Dodd, Adam Telfer, Dicky Dunn and James Crosby created a push over try with captain Micky Hall touching down at the back of the eight full back Ross Cooke converted to bring Tynedale back into the contest. The home side came back and were awarded a penalty which they converted from 35 yards to stretch their lead, however when Harrogate knocked on trying to run the ball out of their 22 Tynedale were awarded a scrum to the left of the posts again the Tynedale eight drove the Georgians back and Micky Hall picked up five metres from the line to cross the line for the try, Cooke converted. When the Harrogate scrum half back chatted the referee after the award of the try he was shown a yellow card and sent to the sin bin giving Tynedale a numerical advantage but indiscipline resulted in the award of a penalty in front of the posts and Harrogate stroked the kick over to leave them leading 16- 14 at the end of the first half.
With Jay West and Dan Kerr combining well to use good ball being won at the line out by Jacob Brown and Adam Todhunter kicking well, the Raiders were able to play in the Harrogate half and Jonny Dodd broke through the home defence to score the try to give the lead back to Tynedale, once again Harrogate came back to take the advantage with a converted try.
Youngsters David O' Neill and Oliver Wall were brought on in the front row and Tynedale continued to dominate the forward play and with Jonny Cousin winning a great amount of possession in the loose, wing Seb Jansen almost broke round the outside, his run being halted with a last ditch covering tackle, however Tynedale did score the next try with Tom Robson crossing the line to give the visitors a one point advantage, good cover defence from Phil Lloyd created turnover ball and Cooke broke away to score a try which he also converted to seemingly give them a firm grip on the game and with Ben Robson and Rob Earnshaw coming on from the replacement bench young prop Oliver Wall showed a great turn of pace to charge over for the try. Far from conceding the tie the depleted Harrogate side with a second yellow card leaving them outnumbered once again, broke to the right to score the try and bring themselves back into the game unfortunately missing the conversion which would have brought them back to within one score of the victory.
With the last play of the game, man of the match Jonny Dodd rounded off a stunning individual display to seal the Tynedale win with his second try of the day, to seal a great win against a talented and determined Harrogate outfit.