Melbourne come up short against Keyworth 1s

Not the easiest of games to organise this, with a few last minute cry offs, injuries and call ups to the first but all the same a worthwhile one as it allowed us to meet some new friends. Big thanks to everyone who got mates to play, especially Tony Day who found his mate Phil ‘shoulders’ Jones who he thought was a prop and who turned out to be a pretty good centre, and dello on the wing who is played very well and Jordan for finding Callum, big thanks also to Will Cresswell for stepping up and Sam Cole for skipping work to be with us.

We arrived at Keyworth and up until 20 minutes before kick off there were only 12 of us but eventually everyone found the venue, the conditions were perfect, warm but soft underfoot, we did not have a particularly cohesive warm up but we taught Guy Copper how to jump in the line and Jordan organised his backs. Jake Walker was more lost than normal and arrived a couple of minutes after kick off. But all good given the circumstances

Keyworth looked larger than us, but it looked pretty even. Keyworth first had given Amber Valley a walk over so we suspect the usually keyworth 2nds were bolstered by a few first team lads.

We kicked off against he wind and with the sun in our eyes and quickly the game settled into a pattern of big Keyworth forwards running at us and being tackled, and Melbourne playing a bit faster and looser, but what was different about Keyworth from many of the big teams we play is they also had one or two very fast backs and we could not get away as easily as we hoped in open play and on occasion they could run around us.

Melbourne had a bit more flare at 9,10,11 but Keyworth were quicker our wide and we could not afford to be turned over and concede quick ball.

The scrums were tough for Melbourne Keyworth seemed to have no end of very strong and heavy forwards and although we won the first few we were going back fast.

Keyworth were the first to score, then we scored following some good pressure with wattie making a searing cut inside on from 5 (40 ish in his mind) yards 7-7

Then Keyworth used their pace to run around us 14-7 and then we had tries from Guy Cooper (first for the club) and two from Jordan Hollis plus 2 more for Keyworth.

Phil had an effective hand off and made great ground, Dello made some great runs and was unlucky to score, and callum was the slipperiest player on the field but by his own admission felt he was better linking play rather than running a long distance to score.

Just before half time Toy Day was felled by the oldest player on the pitch and hurt his back and had to go off, this put us down to 14, but it did stop us having any more contested scrums which was a blessing, for me atleast

The line out was going well, we won most of our own ball nicely and Booko messed with the opposition ball quite a bit.

Half time and 26-18 and all in all we were a bit lucky to be ahead on the balance of play.

In the 2nd half we had the wind and the sun and we kicked off in hope. First to score were Keyworth who notably had a very good number 1 in the back row who probably would walk into our first and a swarthy middle aged number 20 who was very very good and had an alarming turn of pace for a man of his age.

Both Keyworth tries resulted from poor tackling by Melbourne following many Keyworth Surges, we could just turn the ball over and gave away a lot of penalties.

Keyworth scored first to make it 25-25 but then Watti popped up again to make it 33-25 following a stupendous kick by booko. Keyworth then scored again to make it 33 apiece with 12 to go ish, but then things went a bit wrong

Other highlights of the half, Will Cresswell pinching the ball of a man twice his size and age who saw the funny side, booko getign poked in the eye and pretending to be a pirate and Will Cresswell looking like a confused quarterback about to be sacked as he received the ball on a couple of occasions with runners all around him but none he could really pass too safely

Booko caught the restart but got tangled up and went off injured we were now down to 13 and in the last 10 Keyworth made us pay running in two more tries final scrore 43 -33.

Keyworth were a very fair team and were very kind to us when we were late turning up etc, it was a good fun game and we all enjoyed the run out.

The weather was great for an outdoor beer , good fixture,

MVP hard one this, but Cooper and Dawson were very good as was Jordan and Will Cresswell, etc but it goes to Jordan for the two tries and having a talented mate

Phil and Dello undoubtably are great finds for us.

Next week final game, beer after the game and jugs in the pub, make sure everyone turns up and we can chill, we have earned it!