Melbourne lose to Derby 3s in Pennant

This week was a bit of a mess, their was strong expectation that we would get some players from the 21 man first team squad but ended up loosing some from our own to them, there were also a few un availabilites a late cry off or two and some inept reading from the management who did not notice that Booko and Kurtis had said un available on their text.

So we ended up with 14 men, including the mystery figures of Webbo and Charlie who were bought by Will Cressell. Toby Yates and Arun Purwel making their 2nd team debutes and veteran penalty giver Dave Lowson pressed into service.

Derby had a large squad and it was very kind of them to give us a player Smithie (who was very good) Derby 2nds did not have a match and so 3 of the 2nds came to watch, Smithie was one of them.

The Derby team were very large and much older than most of our team, but we had some quick players and a good back row and hoped to keep the ball away from the Derby forwards, Dave Porter kindly dropped into centres.

They kicked off and we immediately did better than we expected, Derby were not as fast or agressive as us, and did not have much penatration. We on the other hand made a series of nice breaks with Jo Bryant and Al Holingsworth making line breaks and Will kicking very nicely.

I for one though releaved that we had managed 10 minutes without conceeding, but we were to do even better, Joe Bryant who had wanted to stay in bed, played a blinder,. Smithie was very good and organmsied and settled us down and everyone else did their bit, Toby ripped some ball, and in the scrums we could get our own ball despite being maybe 3 stone a man lighter. Our first few line outs were a bit rubbish but we could mess with the derby ball and it was Derby gving away lots of penalties.

Derby probably had more of the ball and tried some rolling mauls but we dealt with them well and kept them away from our 22.

From a break out by Melbourne we got a penalty and decided to kick 3-0 very good and again I wondered if we would regret annoying derby, but not we stayed on the front foot, and Smithie for one thought we would win.

More Melbourne pressue and good ball, palyed simply through the backs saw Shean Moran run through to score a converted try 10-0.

Sean was faultless all game, (as he ahs been so far this season)

We carried on in the same vein until 1/2 time, mainly in control and we had a theory Derby may tire.

The 2nd half changed things, we played agaisnt the wind and Derby (not un reasonably) took smithie back and put him in their team. We would be down to 14 and Smithie was good at organising.

For the 2nd week on the trot we found oursleves leading a big old derby team at half time, and as last week they decide to play 10 man rugby for the rest of the game, infact calling it 10 man rugby is probably making it sound more expansive than it was. They kept taking the ball on tight to the ruck and trying to drive mauls, and the extent of their ambition was to kick ot the corners hoping for a line out they could drive or a scrum they could push over from.

We did OK for a while, we turned over ball if it went wide and prevented Derby making any progres from short drives, but we were un done by penalties, mainly given of coming in from the side.

We did hold out in a series of scrums and line outs in our 22, but on one line out we forgot to challenge and the inevitable 8 man drive from derby saw them score 10-7.

The rest of the half was a fairly settled pattern we could turn over ball and clear but could not sustain any pressure or make a clean line break. Derby would then get a penalty kick us back and then try to score from 5 yards out, only to be hold out by some very determined defence, big shout to guy cooper for his work, and joe bryant for cutting many derby players off below the knees and driving them back.

All the backs were heroic and tackled if derby tried to go wide and turned over ball, especially Webbo and Charlie who were probably half the size of the guys they were playing.

In the end we gave away too many penalties and were down 13-10 with 7 minutes to go, we did try to score and had a pretty intense period of huffing and puffing but could not get a sniff of a chance.

Final score 13-10

Well played derby, I think we can take some credit give we had 14 players and only 11 of the team had seen each other before

The ref was very good and was right to penalise us to much in the 2nd half we proably deserved and should learn from it. (as Shaggy said it was n't me)

Before the game I was worried that this would be a moral sapping heavy defeat, in the end I think we all felt we had been in a very good game and that if we could display the spirit in future games we will do well.

No one had a bad game everyone played to their full potential, but man of the match was Jo Bryant.

Next week at home again!! to Ashfield 2nds