Norton travelled to Weston with a young, patched-up side and despite injuries and illness, put in a spirited and gutsy performance. Weston drew first blood but Nathan Fear latched onto a loose pass to score an excellent interception to try to draw the scores level. In the process, he damaged his shoulder to add to the ever increasing numbers of walking wounded.
Weston took a small lead into the second half and then extended it as Norton ran out of able-bodied defenders when the home team moved the ball quickly and hit some good running lines. To Norton’s credit, they fought back heroically, even when down to fourteen players due to injury, to score two successive tries from Backhurst and Rose.
Mitch Rose, in particular, was impressive throughout, both in the set piece and the loose. He created turnovers, put in some big hits and played with the type of spirit that lifts the whole team.
Norton will be looking forward to being able to recall a number of more experienced players for the next league game, but will take away positives from this loss. The set piece was solid and a ‘never say die’ attitude was evident throughout.