Melbourne Miss Booko as they lose to strong Paviors outfit

Melbourne had a home fixture against Paviors 3rds, the team was pretty good, with both props Pip and Toby under the age of 50, two mobile 2nds rows Jake C and Alex D, a mobile backrow of Al hollingsworth, Jake Walker and Elliot. Scrum half Will, C, Deano at Flyhalf Phil Jones and Dale in the centres and Tommo and Any Orrack on the wings and Sean the sheep at Full back.

We had Rich Woodburn to come on and a bonus of Callum Macken fresh from marine duty. we also hoped Alex Birch and George Cartwright would arrive (George was selling property unitl 2)

The Council pitch was in pretty good conditon and their was little wind. the Paviors team looked large but not too scary at first glance.

The game kicked off and immediately Melbourne were on the front foot and within 1 minute quick ball , a nice kick from Dean a fumble and Dale scored 7-0 (conversion by Creswell) All good. Was this going to be a good week.

But soon Paviorws came back into it with a good try, penning us back into our half with penatlies, driven line outs and scrums and evenutally a simple try in the corner. 7-7

The next 15 minutes seemed a bit frustrating from the touch line, Melbourne gave away a succession of Penalties at the breakdown. and although we seemed to be quicker to the lose ball we could not put together more than a couple of phases. Paviors played a steady ten man game, cathcing and driving and exerting a good shove in scrums. eventually following a penalty and another 10 yards they rumbled over 14-7.

Not sure what happened to Paviors at this point but the started to be a bit more expansive, not in a helter skelter way, but they started to put together a lot more phases and started to off load in tackles etc, Melbourne defended for anothe 15 mins but it was all one way traffic. the scrums were odd Melbourne going back, but not really loosing the ball often and Jordan pinched a couple agains the head, Line outs went with the throw in.

We did have some chances in the backs, but nothing came of them, some of the paviors backs flyhalf, and big strawbery blonde centre began to look more threatening.

We tackled and tackled and held up people on the try line, fabiulous tackles by Phil Jones, Jake, Alex. Tommo, Dean and ripping by elliot but when we did get the ball we never got out of our half. With 3 minutes to go to half time paviors scored twice quickly to make it 28-7 at half time.

At half time I think we still clung to a hope that our luck would change and we would get the bounce of the ball and get a score or two back, Rich Woodburn had a go a scrum half while Will rested his head and looked very good. Callam came on and ran around like a marine. but not much changed, if anything Paviors became more profficient, our penalty count dropped and the ref seemed ot be on our side but still Paviors kept pressing, scrogin twice out wide to make it 33-7.

The pattern for all the tries were the same 3 or 4 paviors phases great tackling but eventually there would be an overlap and a try out wide.

Melbourne then had 10 minutes of pressure where we won alot of penatlies and tried top force our way over, I think Paviors were failry confident they could hold out.

In the end paviors got three more tries two in the normal manner and one, (the only one of the game) due to missed tackles

We never gave up, everyone ran agressively, (Sean, Dale, ) etc but in the end Paviors were too big, and frankly to good.

Man of the match is a tough one, but it has to be someone who did a lot of tackling, so I am going with Phil Jones!

We are on a journey onwards and upwards,

Next week, another home game vs Sutton Bonnington (they will be students qucik but perhaps not so large)