Melbourne lose to Ilkeston 3s/2s

This is going to be quite a philisophical match report, we learned a few things on Saturday about Melbourne 2nds and also a few things about life in this league.

Firstly is it worth while checking the fixtures of the club you are playing to see if their firsts and secords have a fixture and discover that they are not playing and then fret that the fixture is going to be tough , or is better not to know and arrive in hope? I choose the 2nd path as we put out the best team we could and were optimistic of a win for atleast the first 40 minutes.

We had to play the fixture at Ilkeston as our Pitch was soggy, we had a large squad, but the squad was desimated a bit on Saturday morning when we lost 3 props to an overflowing bath, shopping, and an incident in the lower meadow. Still we travelled with 19

Including debuts for Jo Bancroft at scrum Half, Stringer returning from injury. With Backs of Jo, Dale, Will Cresswell, Strainger, Kurtis, Sean and Tommy Line this was probably the best back line the 2nds have ever had, with strong subs as well. I was also good to have the newly bearded Dave Porter back, the pack now has 3 people with impressivde facial hair (if you count Karls sideburns)

Before the game we looked for volunteers for the front row, to play alongside Pip and Sparksey and Karl stepped up and Alex Birch was nominated for his frist go at it (always good to start vs ilkeston 2nds)

The Ilkeston team was nothing like the one we lost to narrowly earlier in the season, they were not as large and were missing their enormous number 8, but looekd pretty healthy and capable in the warm up.

Melbourne kicked off against the wind and immediately scored, a kick was missed by Ilkeston and Sean the sheep skipped in to score 5-0 shaking off 3 tacklers as he went. Maybe Ilkeston were not as good as they looked in the warm up?

The lead was not to last long from the re start Ilkeston re cyled the ball and scored in the corner, showing quick hands pace and someevidence of trainign to score 7-5

The next few minutes were fairly even the Melbourne scrum was solid, new scrum half Jo looked very good, Jack Pearce without a hang over was playing very well and as always Melbourne showed they could tackle. It looked like tow pretty even teams, playing some pretty good rugby

On 13 minutes stringer made good ground the ball was recyled and Kurtis nipped in a try out wide 10-7 Game on.

On 16 minutes Ilkeston hit back this time they caught a ball at the line out and drove us back 10 metered to scrore, on the whole they were maybe a couple of stone a man heavier than us, and it was a worry that they would do this again, but after this we manegd to hold them 14-7

For the only period of the game, Melbourne than lost heir heads a bit, giving away a number of penlaties and trying to run a penalty from our 5 yard line, this resulted in two further Ilkeston tries, to make it 10-26.

Ilkeston 2nds play in the top pennant league (two above us) and from what we understand they were the heart of the team we were playing. They were big, had good hands and played pretty attractive rugby. and Melbourne 2nds were giving them a game.

After 30 minutes Melbouren scored again the ball came to Kurtis in his own half who ran the length of pitch to score, skinning the ilkestion winger, it was the fastest I have ever seen Kurtis run since Booko offered to buy him a drink 17-26

Some very poor tackling let Ilkeston in again to make it 17-31 at half time. Melbourne were still in touch

No one could fault any of the Melbourne players, the spirit was good, and I think the players believed they could win.

With lots of subs we made changes at Half time, and everyone accepted the substituions with good grace, Jake Collard came on for Booko, ALex Birch for Karl at Prop, Rich Woodburn for Jo at Scrum Half and Tommo for Kurtis on the wing.

All game Jack Pearce turned over ball at the breakdown and Chris Williams, Sparksi Karl, Jake Collard and Dave Porter dogged it out in the lose, within 2 minutes of coming on Jake took some big hits and had one comedy boom from a large Ilkeston Player but showed great spirit to get back up and put in another big tackle straight away.

In all truth the 2nd half was less even than the first, it was mainly Ilkeston Territory and Ball with lots of great defence from Melbourne the Ilkeston subsittuirons did not seem to dilute their qulaity and they went on to score three more tries.

Alex Birch did well in the scrum and we continued to win our own ball, Karl came back on for Pip and Kurtis for WIll Cresswell with Dale goign to fly half.

We kept trying until the final whistle and it woudl have been great to get a bonus point with another try but it was not to be, Final score 46-17.

Shame we did not contnue our winning run, but this was honestly one of our best performance from a strong team and there was still a positive feeling despite the heavy defeat.

MVP was probably between Kurtis, Jack Pearce and Jordan Sparkes, but Kurtis get teh glory of the tries and Jordan is a winner in life, so this week it goes to Jack Pearce who really manned up against a good team.

None of the team let us down and the subs all played very well.

Stringer thinks we would all benefit from going training and if we did could match a team like Ilkeston. Alex Birch shoudl go training as I think he could go far at Prop.

Next week Chesterfield at Home