Crosfields 52 Gateshead Storm 24

NATIONAL Conference League Division Three leaders Crosfields paid a fitting tribute to the late Roy Pickersgill with a comfortable win over Gateshead Storm.

Former Wolves prop Pickersgill, whose funeral took place the day before the match, was a key figure at Crosfields, while his sons Steve (head coach) and John (prop forward) are still heavily involved and a minute’s silence was held before the game on Saturday.

When the action did get underway, Soap maintained their unbeaten start to the season ahead of Saturday’s tough trip to Eastmoor Dragons and Thursday’s top-of-the-table clash with local rivals Woolston Rovers.

Billy Sheen opened the scoring early on, before good hands put Jimmy Rookes in for the second score and Kieran Thomas collected Jack Reid’s chip to give Soap a comfortable lead.

This seemed to spark the visitors into life and they were rewarded for a period of pressure with their opening try.

However, Sheen’s perfectly-judged chip in-goal was pounced on by Nathan Taylor for Soap’s fourth try before the former grabbed his second of the game to put Soap 28-6 up at the interval.

Hayden James cantered away for another try five minutes after the restart, but the visitors then enjoyed a purple patch of two tries in ten minutes to narrow the gap.

Skipper Reid dummied his way through to score near the posts to ease Crosfields’ nerves before his cross-field chip found Taylor, who crossed under the sticks for his second of the afternoon.

The visitors kept plugging away and good hands saw them cross in the right corner, but this was the last time they troubled the scorers as Matt Mahoney rounded off the win by stepping through a tired Gateshead defence to score.