Castle Donington 10 - 14 Melbourne 2nd XV

Following the cancellation of the home league game, Melbourne 2nd went into the pool and ended up with a the short trip to Castle Donnington, last year castle Donningon dropped out of the league and this season will be playing in the same pennant league as us so this was the first of 3 encounters. Donnington were also putting our a 2nd team and Melbourne were a little worried that we had got a fixture against the wrong team.

Over the years the Donnington/Melbourne rivalry has been pretty intense and there was an extra edge to the game. Melbourne had a strong squad, of 22, with Dave Middleton Pulling on his boots for the first time this year and Sam Cole has finished building a power station as was also available for the first time. Also starting for the first time was Scott Swannick who has decided to give Melbourne a go. Tom Cresswell did not arrive at the match at kick off time following his arrest in a gents toilet at Markeaton park (hard luck tom)

The Donnington pack looked larger but a little less mobile then Melbourne and Melbourne had some very strong and fast backs as well as Deano

From the off Melbourne were on the front foot, we were doing ok in the tight, secreting good ball, and generally getting the better of the 2nd phase call, there were several good line breaks and opportunity and as we have come to expect, Kurtis, Jack Pearce, Alex and Tommy line looked dangerous. Chris Fulton was kicking well and making he Donnington backs turn around, at 16 minutes, a kick by Fulton was fumbled and Jack Pearce was on hand to run in try under the posts 7-0.

The pattern of the game continued and on 20 minutes Will Butler cam on for an injured Jordan, Will immediately started winning line out ball on our own ball and Donningtons, the ref was also favouring Melbourne in most cases and we were pretty much running things, after 25 minutes, a break from deep saw Leading scorer Kurtis bundled into touch, not quite certain what happened but he certainly bashed his nose and the game was halter for 5 minutes and Kurtis came off, with Jack peace going to the wing and Joe Stuart to Centre

At 33 minutes Melbourne scored again a kick by donnington found Alex Lloyd who ran it straight back to score, 14-0 with the conversion with Chris Fulton, the shame was Melbourne did not score again, the rain was getting worse and we had chances but did not. 14-0 at Half time. Donnington had only been in the Melbourne 22 in the first half and were probably not the fitter team.

Oddly the Dave porter was sin binned, but one was sure why.

For the 2nd Half Scott came on for Deano at inside centre and Booko came on in the 2nd row, Steve Bell went to hooker and Josh went to prop. On the face of this, nothing should change but something did, I have a few observations

1) The scrum started to go back quicker and was turned over
2) Will Butler was catching clean ball, but somehow Donnington were getting hands to it and truning over (they were better mauling being older and stronger)
3) The combination of a retreating scrum and some confusion between no 8 and the scrum half meant we were getting poor ball
4) Fulli was kicking everything and not making touch as often
5) The ref seemed to have taken against us
6) Some players were more interested in arguing with Donnington than playing them off the park
7) The coaching squad did not manage to work this out during the game to show how dysfunctional we are

The fact that we could not win steady first phase ball anymore meant we were playing into Donnington hands, Donnington never really went wide, they kept it narrow and were confident if they knocked on or the ball went into touch they would get it back

Donninton were pretty much camped in the Melbounre ½ and when we did break we made less of it in the first half, In the end Donnington scored from a push over try to make it 14-5. With over 20 minutes to play things were looking tough. Melbourne made changes to shore up the scrum, and did a bit better but gave over penalty after penalty, eventually Pip Day was sin binned (he did not know why but probably for the repeated offences) , this was a sort of a lucky break as the scrums went un contested following the earlier loss of Jordan.

Josh who lived in Donnington was constantly being taunted by their shaven headed and beardy forward. It was amusing but probably did not help us concentrate

For the final 15 , Melbourne defended pretty heroically, it seemed certain Donnington would score, but great work by everyone held them out, particular credit goes to Belli, Tony Day, and Dave Porter who kept turning ball over. Scott also looked pretty useful in the centre.

After another series of penalties in the Melbourne 22 the refs alarm went off for end of the match and for the last play Donnington rumbled over from 5 yards 14-10 it finished, and Melbourne were proud but very relieved,

Melbourne had manned up for the 2nd half and fought hard and beating a 1st team is great. But there were so many things we could have done better, Will needed more protection in the line or needed to give it off the top, we needed to use the back more and not kick so much, and we will normally have a lighter pack so must learn to cope, on our own ball or when retreating.

On another day the pace of the Melbourne backs would have probably allowed us to score more in the first half, but the weather was horrid.

There was a pretty good crowd and it was nice to see some old faces popping up for this traditional encounter

We all hope Kurtis’s nose is ready for action again next week,

There were a number of great displays, and MVP goes to one of the players who toughed it out in the 2nd half, Dave Porter

Following a meeting of the 2nd team committee after the game, it was agreed that if anyone does not turn up on the day for a game we will tell outrageous lies about them in the match report fair?