Melbourne secure bonus point win with scratch side

A bit of a strange build up to this one, Newark is our longest away trip for the year and we had a few of our favourite forwards missing through injury etc so we called up Bob Stowell for action again and planned to play Deano in the 2nd row, we did however have 10 very good backs, how things changed on Friday night/Saturday morning with the appearance of one more forward Chris Weisell and the loss through various reasons of 6 backs , leaving us with 8 forwards , and 5 backs, on Saturday, Elderly prop Dave Lowson said he would play but we still only had 14 and Deano went back into the backs. Tommy Lines excuse of going to a gig with Al Hollingsworth was quite credible until it revealed to be a 6 music folk night!! I am expecting to see both of them next week with Arun Sweaters and Beards and to participate in a morris dance based warm up.

We had beaten Newark at our place and they had claimed we had ½ our first team playing, this was not true at all, but for the trip to Newark we just about had 2/3rds of the regular 2nds and a couple of old men.

Besides the old men we did have 12 very good players, the helmatron bothers, Jordan, Elliot, Chris W and Joe Bryant in the pack and Devon, Jack P, Dale, Joe Stuart, Deano and Dave Porter who volunteered to play on the wing thansk dave)

Elliot had never jumped in a line out but volunteered to do so whilst he was in the changing room. The Newark team seemed larger than us, but their warm up did not look too terrifying, they were however bigger than us, all over the park, (apart from Bob)

We did not have a huge warm up and kicked off, hoping for a bit of fun and promised that we would try to run it from all over the park, with Dale, Jack Joe, Devon, told to play with great freedom. The pitch was in great condition and it was really quite warm for the Notts/Lincs/Ukraine border in February.

We kicked off and from the beginning we had a good few minutes, we turned over ball, harried Newark and generally looked pretty good, from a scrum, we won god ball and quick hands saw the ball go to temporary winger Dave Porter who scored 5-0.

Clearly Newark had the extra man and you felt if they ran it they would score, straight away from the restart they got good clean ball in our half and quick hands saw it go to their winger who out flanked us and score 7-5. Maybe our first 3 minutes had been a fluke and now Newark would start to dominate, but it did not happen, Melbourne were just quicker to the breakdown and had better runners. You don t really appreciate how much work Chris Williams does until you are on the pitch with him as he is not all that flashy in open play but he kept turning over ball.

J Stu took to dancing about and dodging Newark players, Tony Day tried quite successfully to out flank Newark and jack and dale were more direct (and to be fair more successful,) but overall we looked dangerous everytime we had the ball, Chris W/Joe Bryant was great in support .

Elliot was fabulous in the line out and proclaimed his new role as easy and the scrum went with put in, the Newark Tight head being small but very strong.

Melbourne had loads of pressure for the next tem minutes but were guilty of being very greedy, players young and old (bob not me) tried to rumble over from 5 yards time and time again only to be held up or stopped, Newark were far larger and we were not using our big runners to go around them, after 10 mins of pressure and quite a lot of moaning at each other Newark kicked clear and inadvertently did what we should have done by giving the Ball to Jack Pearce out wide, he ran the ball straight back 12-5. We also got a bit fired up by all the shouting at each other for being greedy which probably helped

The first half carried on in the same vain, Melbourne made all the breaks, Tony Day messed up a certain try, Dale, Jack and Joe kept cutting lose and if we could turn over ball in open play we counter attacked well, really Newark did not threaten for the rest of the half and Melbourne scored two more tries by Chris Weisell and Jack Pearce to make it 26-5 at half time. We were a bit stunned really.

Half time we determined to play more of the same and to win the first ten and then push on, Newark had other ideas, I think they decided to change tactics and drive in the forwards which the duly did for the first 5 minutes of the half, Melbourne gave away lots of penalties (Sorry) and Newark kept rolling forward slowly but without much threat of scoring, I think we became a bit complacent believing we would keep them out for ever, but eventually they scored a disputed push over 26-10. It may have all gone wrong but straight from a deep restart from Dale, we got the ball and despite another outbreak of greed eventually got it wide and scored again 33-10. .

With 15 minutes gone, Captain Dave Lowson attempted to mate with someone again and was sin binned but in his absence Melbourne cut lose scoring another 3 tries in ten mins with 13 men. One a slow motion one from dean, one a length of the pitch one from Dale and a joe stuart one.

Newarks strong prop came off and for the last 15 minutes Melbourne did better in the scrums and eventually scored again to make the final score after taking ne against the head 59-10.

7 conversions by Dale!!

3 tries from Jack Peace puts him to top scorer in our team.

Everyone was magnificent (apart from the old folk) Tony Day huge, Jordan, good hooking, the back row really everywhere, Chris Williams so many turnovers, Elliot best line out jumper in the team ever, Devon, Joe, Jack, Dale loads of great breaks, Deano a rock and Dave Porter a revelation on the wing.

We may have only been 14 but it was a great office and seeing Dean in the paper shop this morning, we still can not quite believe it.

Man of the match between Dale, Jack and Chris Williams for me, and as Dale is already very pretty and Jack got three tries I am going with Chris

Next week home (truly) to West Bridgford