Melbourne 2nds 0 Sutton Bonnington 34

Melbourne 2nds put on our tweed jackets, hunter wellies and Barbours and made the short journey to Sutton Bonnington for a game against the pennant leaders. We know what to expect vs Bonnington, they will be fast and fit and there appeared to be about 28 of them and none over 21.

All sterio types were enforced before kick off when we saw them arrive at the pitch with Marlborough and Wellington school training tops, (Booko was surprised to see that a school team was sponsored by a fag company)

The facilities at Sutton Bonnington at excellent and its nice to see the tuition fees being spent so wisely.

We had a decent enough side with a front row or Masters, Pip and Mansfield, Booko and Ed Whitton 2nd row and a rotating back row of Sparkes, Walker and Rice and the ever present Jack Pearce.

Scrum Half was Rich Woodburn, with Will Cresswell, Tommy, Scott Swannick, Nathan Bishop,. Tommo, and Sean the sheep, Dan the colt was available to come on as soon as someone tired.

To beat Bonnington you need a plan, beat them up front, win your line out ball, dont get turned over out wide and as you can not run round them, so you need to run through them. and dont give them the ball too much. So we had a plan, big scrum, safe line out with runners, scott boshing in the middle and not too much expansive play.

The issue was execution of this plan, or at least for the first 20 minutes of the game.(or the 2nd 14 minutes). On the face of it he Bonnington pack were not that much smaller and were certainly taller.

We kicked off up hill and against the wind, and the game was soon in a pattern, we could win our won ball but we could not hold on to it for any period of time, we did some hollywood pass's some lose kicks and really did not attempt any forward moves, or drives around the fringes, Scott has one impressive charge but it was mainly Bonnington getting the ball back and Melbourne defending.

Bonnington are not just quick and fit, they also dive on the ball when lose and we were 2nd best at this for the first 20 minutes and our tackles were not the sort that were going to knock the confidence out of Bonnington, I am know I am blowing smoke up Bonnington, but they also accept they make mistakes/lose the ball and just try again and again, they swarm over you and never give you a chance to calm down and play your own game plan.

between the 7th and 24th minute Bonnington scored 4 tries, all pretty similar we would give the ball away some how and then quick hands and good support would see Bonnington score 23 minutes gone 24 nil and it looked like we were in for a thrashing.

I don't know what happened then but we then started thinking more, Rich Woodburn and Will started making shorted pass's Dan came on and made some big tackles and we worked our way up the pitch a bit more

All game Bonnignton gave away penalties, for offside, never too blatant, but they just play on the edge they also try to tap the ball out of players hands or intercept, this resulted in a lot of knock on that could have been deliberate on another day.

Jack Pearce, Chris M, Pip Scott and iain Masters made a few bullocking runs and we held our own until half time 24-0

With the slope and the wind, we maybe had more of a chance in the 2nd half, Will was making more touches with kicks and we adopted a 4 man line whcih gave us a chance to put some big runners in mid field. Sadly there were a lot of over throws in the line and normally Bonnington seized the ball.

10 minutes into the 2nd half we had a moment of humiliation when from a line out Bonnington caught and drove over from 5 metres out, not good when you are a heavier team. 29-0

But mainly we were playing better, Dan was a revelation running strongly and Sean the sheep got on his bike on lots of occasions and did not lose the ball.

The ref was favouring us big style and we had lots of penatlies, probably if we had kicked the easy ones we could have got 9 points or so, but there was not a lot of point.

We conceded one more try to make it 34-0 but for last ten minutes of the game we pounded away at the Bonnington line, un-successfully with our new favourite ref , helping us to remain camped in the bonnington red zone.

Final score 34-0 We deserved to lose by that much and Bonnington clearly train and have worked out how to play without first phase ball etc. It was played in very good spirit

There were positives from the game , the way we changed the play to the conditions and opposition, Rich Woodburn and Jack Pearce 8 and 9 worked well and the new Dan was Great.

Scrum got better as the game went on.

MVP I just cant give it to Jack again, he was very good, but probably not at his very best so this week it goes to Rich Woodburn for his best performance a scrum half yet.

Well done Bonnington , from what we can see, a Paviors Bonnington game will be very close, to decide the league.

We have a week off. but maybe back in action on the 7th or at least drinking in the tent and then definitely away at West Bridgford on the 14th

Don't forget to come to the diner on the 24th of April £25 per head