Rare home match for 2nds

Match day 6 of the season and Melbourne have yet to secure back to back wins!! and had not yet played at Home!!!! This all changed after victory against Nottinghamians

Melbourne had a strong squad of 24 or so players and although there was some confusuion about the location of the Melbourne ground most people had found it by 2pm, Tommy Line, Scott and Dave Porter were away and Kurtis and Jordan injured, but they were replaced in the squad by a returning WIll Weeds, a first outing for Lewis Hammond, and the Walker brothers, Matt Jake and Dan who unlike there 60's singing names sakes are actually brothers but have neve rhad a number one hit in the UK. James Whitfield also returned as did Tom Cresswell.

Melbourne had a fairly structured warm up and some of the failings from the Castle Donnington game were addressed, line outs etc, I have rarely seen a Melbourne 2nds team as ready.

Nottinghamians had about 16 players but no front row (even though a lot of the players were much bigger than ours) they requested we played uncontested scrums. This was probably of more benefit to Melbourne who are not exactly huge up front, but pretty mobile.

Within a minute of kickoff things went Melbournes way a great kick off by Melbourne saw possession turn over and then a sweeping move involving all the backs and the pace of Will Weeds was finished by Jack Pearce 7-0

Within a minute Melbourne were on the attack and the ball again got to Weedsey who was bundles into touch and kicked exactly on his injured knee, he went off to be repalced by Booko.

Melbourne were playing some nice stuff, out rucking Nottinghamians and with Chris Fulton kicking a lot less we made very good ground on several occassions, surely Melbourne would score again but no, one of Nottinghamians players ran the length of thje pitch to make it 7-7.

Melbourne never believe in making things easy, the lineoout were working well, and James Whitfield went off mortally wounded to be repalced by George, but we kept giving away penalty after penalty and not really stamping our authority oin the game, James Whitfield rose lazarus like to go back on and then made the worst chip and chase ever as the ball went backwards.

Tony day playing brilliantly made a break and Chris Williams ran into score 12-7

Smithie came off fatigued. as all his bodies blood was channelled into his sinuous calves and he felt faint, and captain Nigel Breakwell limped out of the game.

In the last few minutes of the half there were several times when it seemed easier to score than not, and Booko came close a few times.

At half time, the management worked out that we no longer needed a proper front row as the scrums were un apposed and we sent on a load of flankers to play there. George also came on a scrum half.

At the start of the first half the ball started to be recyled quicker and the penalties stopped, almost immediately Will Butler latched on to some fast recyleceld abll to score 19-7 and 5 minutes Jack Pearce ran in another try 24-7 and the game was looking safe.

Alex Lloyd had been making some scary runs all after noon and tem minutes one of those reaulted in a try to make the score 31-7, everybody wanted to score and in the 56th minute veneran centre Deano ran onto a kicked through ball from 5 yards out to make it 38-7

James Whitfied had rejoined the game after Joe Stuart who had eaten some raw chicken in an attempt to copy the usain bolt diet came off poorly. James almost immedaiately scored to make it 45-7 with 13 minutes to go.

Lewis Hammond got on to return to rugby after shoulder surgery and Matt Walker joined his brothers for the last 10.

The last minutes were not all that structured and probably too many players were looking for a try and not doing their jobs, and Nottinghamians again scored from a long way out to make it 45-12 at the end

This was the best and cohesive performance by Melbourne 2';s this season, lots of players had their best game this season, Jack Pearce looked good at Full Back, Will Butler did well in the line and ran with the ball alot, Smithie, Chris WIllaims, Tony Day, Joe Bryant and Tom Cresswell were very agressive in the forwards.

Will weeds looked trully scary for the first 3 minutes and Alex was dangerous all game.

MVP tough one, I heard nominations for Chris WIlliams, Alex, Fulli of course and Will Butler, But this week I am going for Alex

after the game Nottinghamians asked if we had a load of first team players on the pitch which we did not but they had 5 so a fine performance all round. They were not a bad team, after the match we pondered on why the teams in this league all seem stronger than the teams we played in the league above last year.

Loads of improvement especially working on the poor parts from Castle Donnington

We drank winning beer and eat very nice sausage casserole afterwards in the lamb and then most of the team stayed out and got very drunk.

Hopefully a local friendly next week probably away