Winning run ends with loss at Castle Donington 33-19

Melbourne Trucked off to Castle Donnington for an important pennant match, we had played them earlier in a friendly and won in a close match, and it was clear that the two teams play very different styles, Melbourne are about 2 stone a man lighter and 15 years younger and play a faster more expansive game, whilst Donnington maul, scrimmage hard and win most clean ball in the Line out.

We knew exactly what we would be up against and the talk before the game was of keeping the ball away from the Donnington forwards, win our own scrums and to try and stop them getting line outs inside our 10 metre line.

The Melbourne team was drawn from our normal pool, with the return of Fulli, and Bompie Thompson (the ginger prince) making his debut for the season,. Since the last game the scrum (an area of weakness in the first game) had been bolstered by Ed Hames and had a few more games extra experience. A couple of regular and semi regular players had gone up to the firsts, and there were a couple of no shows but we still had 20 players.

Historically Donnington vs Melbourne has been a big match and though now it is Donnington 1sts vs Melbourne 2nds its is still a contest with an extra edge

The game kicked off and the first 5 minutes were pretty even and it was nice to see Melbourne hold their own ball in the scrum a couple of times. Then after 9 minutes there was a sudden explosion of Donnington activity, with a series of very quick drives and fast recycling resulting in a try 7-0 to Donnington. Melbourne seemed to take a bit more control and then after 16 minutes a kick was run back by Will Bulter at pace, and fed to Jordan who fed Fulli who scored under the posts 7-7.

Shortly afterwards Tony day took a blow to the knackers that slowed him down a bit for a few moments

Donnington kicked off and immediately the ball was fed to Jack Pearce who scythed through a couple of tackles and fed Scott running a lovely line to score his first try for Melbourne. 14-7, at this point it seemed that Melbourne might get away, we were looking more dangerous than Donnington and it was only a couple of fumbles that prevented us scoring again. Donnington were mainly playing in their own half and the kicks from their fly half (who kicked very well) were mainly returned well.

In open play Melbourne made some great tackles especially a crunching one from Tony Day and a gent called Moose

With Half time looming it all went a bit wrong , a fumbled kick went to ground and from then a bit of rumbling saw Donnington score again 14-14 at half time.

All in all we felt OK at Half time, we had looked the more dangerous, and with Dave Porter coming on we had a bit more bulk in the pack, a special mention to Bompie who took a lot of line out ball and Will butler who went onto the wing and played very well, Donnington had not done too much catching and driving and the scrum was OK. We brought on Henry for Matt, and Josh for Jordan with Tony Day going into the back row

The second half kicked off and the game totally changed, Melbourne started being pegged back and almost predictably Donnington started getting into a rhythm after 9 minutes they got a line out 5 metres out caught at 4 and drove, and then did it again with Josh hanging on to one of their players as they drove over. Within a few seconds it was 28-14.

There were a couple of Melbourne Injuries Bompie getting cramp , and Pip day banging a shoulder,

And the two oldest men on the pitch Dean and Moose got involved in a fight following a hard tackle by Fulli and got binned for 10 minutes,

The pattern of the game continued, I am not sure if it was all Donnington or just Melbourne being their own worst enemies as they chased the game, Melbourne tried to do things quickly but Donnington were very adept at slowing things down and the fly half kept pegging us back with strong kicks

Alex Lloyd made loads of good runs but we never really followed through and too many times when Donnington were launching another driving maul we were too late to get low and drive back.

From another 5 yard line up and drive there was a piece of genius from the Donnignton flyhalf who executed a perfect cross kick for Donnington to score again 33-14.

With the half almost over Melbourne did mix it up with Jack Pearce taking a quick penalty from Fulli and feeding Jordan to score, 33-19,

There was no time for anything else

Grrr very frustrating, Donnington deserved the win on the day, they stuck to plan well in the 2nd half and their fly half ran things,

Too often Melbourne ran into Donnington and presented them the ball, and if only we had found a way of getting a challenge at four in the line we may have put Donnington of their stride. (Looking back we should have got Will Butler to jump as well) we all tried really hard and everyone worked hard. A bit more experience and thought may have won it for us, it was a game set up for someone who turns over ball in the tight and we were all players who did best in open play.

Before the pennant started we thought we would need to put out a bit of vets team to win this kind of game, I think we all feel we don’t need to, but only to play with a bit more thought. As Dean remarked afterwards ‘I would hate to play on the wing for Donnington you must get very cold’

MVP, hmm Tony Day huge, Alex fast, Chris Williams immense, but lets go with Scott for his first try for the club.

Next week away at Dronfield in the cup. And then two home games!!!