Melbourne beat strong Casuals 3s

If Melbourne 2nds are going to have any chance of winning the pennant they had to win this fixture and score four tries, the game was a double header with both the home and away fixtures being decided in one match. Casuals had not had the best of runs, and the Melbourne team looked pretty good on paper, with the Rolls Royce of centres Dale Bilson making a come back and most of the pack being fast, and good , including a first senior outing for colt Elliot Riley in the back row.

The preparation for the game was a little messed up by the traffic with most of the team being late, but perhaps more significantly our firsts had been postponed against casuals firsts so maybe both teams were going to have a few extra quality players available to them.

The Melbourne team included Booko being sensible in the 2nd row and a returning Tom Cresswell.

All in all I think Melbourne kicked off in a pretty confident mood. We had probably the fastest backs we have had all year and if we could get any ball we thought we would be ok. The first ten minutes were pretty dull with both teams playing in midfield, it was clear that Melbourne were not going to be dominated in the scrums, both sides could win line out ball and when Casuals tried to drive Melbourne could hold them, all good. But really the big feature was the constant stream of penalties conceded by Melbourne for offside and the long periods of advantage played by the ref after each decision. Everyone felt that when things settled down and we got used to the ref, Melbourne would be OK, some of the handling was poor and a lot of balls were knocked on etc. After 13 minutes and really after the first attack into the Casuals 22, Melbourne scored a try from fist phase ball, Tony Day catching in the line, Dale making a break and Tommy Line scoring 7-0 with a conversion to Fully. Surely things would settle down now.

But the next 15- 10 minutes was basically casuals camped in the Melbourne 22, the ref gave endless penalties to Casuals for offside, binned Tom Creswell and Melbourne could not put more than one phase together but did defend very well. I can not work out what was going on, but maybe

1) Melbourne were very rusty and could not put together more than one phase
2) The Melbourne back row defended well but did not ever turn over the ball (missed Joe Bryant)
3) Casuals played well but were not all that incisive
4) The ref penalised any one who was offside whether they were interfering with play of not

Melbourne did hold out and tackled well but the Casuals 13 looked very good and we were lucky, in the end they got tired of trying to score from open play and scored two penalties to make it 7-6. Maybe for the next few minutes Melbourne rallied, or maybe the ref took a more relaxed view , but in the 10 minutes before half time Melbourne came back into it, first a kick from casuals was picked up by Alex Lloyd who ran it back and found Kurtis who scored a beautiful try 14-6 and then within minutes good sustained pressure from Melbourne saw Elliot score in his first Senior game 21-6. There were also a couple of missed chances, a held up try, and Kurtis dropping the ball over the line when he could easily have put it down but 21-6 and 3 tries at half time, with a casuals team that we hoped had given their best.

Steve Bell and Jake Walker came on a half time, and the for the first 25 minutes of the 2nd half Casuals really pressurized Melbourne, once more Melbourne conceded loads of penalties (probably over 40) and really rubbed the ref up the wrong way with lots of back chat, and comments from the side lines. (sorry). The best that can be said of Melbourne is that they defended well, there were some real heroics, Elliot kept knocking back much larger players, and Tony Day, Chris Williams, Tommy Line, and everyone really put in a hard shift. Casuals never looked like they would score from open play but kept plugging away and were bigger and stronger than Melbourne. This was not about scouring a forth try it was about securing a win. In the end Casuals pressure paid off and they scored form inside the 5 metres 21-11. Fulli was binned for a high tackle, which was fair.

Sam Cole came on and Melbourne and we had a good few minutes, a good kick saw us in the Casuals half for the first time, and from a resulting scrum Sam cole beat 2 men and scored to make 28-11 with a bonus points and 12 minutes to go. The next few minutes saw Sam have two more chances to score but he forgot the ball, and Melbourne looked ok. With 3 to to Casuals got back into our half and scored again to make to 28-16, but the game was over, much to the relief of Melbourne. (the last minute being enlivened b y Elliot scrapping quite a hard looking man who had touched his scrum cap)

Casuals were a far better team that we had expected from their results, in fact the 2nd best we have played all year, and they were a really honest team who really played to their strengths. Melbourne played the ref very badly, but still should have done better

But positives from the game

We never gave up
Fantastic spirit
The awesome defence
Booko playing a solid game in the 2nd row
We probably created 8 try scoring chances in the game,

MVP tough one, Kurtis was scary but did fail to score when he could, Elliot great Debut, but I am going with Tony Day as it was his spirit that got us through this one

Next week Donnington!!