FOR the first time in more than five years, Northallerton put out three senior men’s teams on the same day, with two out of three being victorious.

Northallerton first team hosted Hullensians at Brompton Lodge and fell to a close 28-31defeat. North started the game with some shocking defending and conceded the first try after only 90 seconds thanks to four missed tackles allowing the Hull winger to score under the posts.

They showed a brief glimmer of hope with ten minutes of pressure in the Hull 22, only for the visitors to go back down the other end for another converted try.

North's defending, or tackling didn’t get much better as the visitors ran in two more tries before the half hour mark to take a 0-26 lead.

On the stroke of half time North finally managed to trouble the scoreboard thanks to a fine run by Graham Currigan, who off loaded to the supporting Sandy Gray to go over for a converted try – 7-26 at half time.

North started the second half off on the front foot and pressed Hull back into their own half. It took North nearly 20 minutes to eventually break down a visibly tiring Hull pack, before Currigan burst through two tacklers to score under the posts. Jedd Bainbridge again with the conversion.

Five minutes later the Hull left winger saw red when lashing out at North's centre before deservedly being shown the red card. With North well in the ascendancy another try was surely soon to come. Two minutes later from a lineout catch and drive, Hull had no answer to North's marauding forwards who powered over the line with the try awarded to Joe Hargreaves. The conversion five yards in from the touchline was again excellently converted by Bainbridge to leave North only five points behind.

As North kept pressing for the match winning try, Hull caught North on the counter with a breakaway try from their strong, pacey right winger who scored in the corner to give Hull a ten point lead.

North again pressurised the visitors but could only manage another converted try from man of the match Currigan just before the final whistle. This try though, gave North a bonus losing point and also another bonus point for scoring four tries.

Next week North make the short journey to the dales to play Wensleydale RUFC with a 2.15pm kick off.

Northallerton second team hosted Thirsk at Brompton and ran out 37-19 victors. Thirsk were sporting enough to loan North two of their players, which backfired slightly with both of them scoring against their own club. North's other tries came from Tom Graham, Ben McNewby, Ryan Lech and Gareth Essex.

Next week North seconds travel with the firsts to neighbours Wensleydale.

Doug Mulholland took a star studded thirds/Vagabonds team over to Cumbria to play the newly reformed Ambleside RUFC.

The veterans/Vagabonds team

The veterans/Vagabonds team

Among the team was Doug’s father Chris Mulholland who is now in his early 70s and first played rugby for Ambleside in 1966 before captaining them two years later. This also makes Chris Mulholland the only person in Northallerton's history to have played in seven different decades at senior level.

To cap this off, Mulholland senior was also a try scorer in the 22-12 victory. North's other points came from Simon Warren, Andrew Fishburn and prop Martin Dennison. Fishburn could only manage one conversion in the severe windy conditions.

North are hopeful of another Vagabonds trip out this season but it will probably take quite a while for the old boys to recover.