East Retford 47 Melbourne 2nds 0

Melbourne 2nds headed off for their longest away trip of the season, the road to East Retford is pretty easy to find, head into the badlands of Worksop and then follow the signs to Minsk and you will eventually come to it. We were fortunate to be visiting before the perma frost arrived and the troubles in Eastern Ukraine did not seem to have effected this sleepy part of North East Nottinghamshire.

This was always going to be a hard week to get a team out, the arrival of DJ Patrick Topping meant that several key players were missing and some that were there were perhaps a little less aware than normal. But we took 16 players including the first appearence of the season of Josh Doyle at Hooker and Alex Dawson and the first ever appeaence of Andy Orrack at scrum half;

I only have the greatest respect and thanks to the players who made the journey.

We had some very strong backs, Tommy Line, WIll Cresswell, a returning first team players Kurtis, Sean the Sheep and Watti and before the game I think we felt if we could get some ball we would score.

The forwards were a little smaller than East Retford but we had Chris WIlliams in the 2nd row and quite a few mobile players.

East Retford looked older,. wiser and more sturdy than us but were not giants.

The first 10 minutes were a complete mess by both sides with neither team putting an phases together, Kurtis had a few good runs and there were loads of scrums, we did OK in the scrums holding our own, Josh is very solid when under pressure and we managed to hold any drive from Retford. and prevent them getting any shove on. But our scrum was less stable than Retfords, for which I appologise to Andy O.

The ref was disparing of both teams and requested that we had a few phases. Sadly it was Retford who responded by putting pahse after phase of rugby together, it was all pretty slow and did not go beyond the centres but it went on for 10 or so minutes, Melbourne held out pretty comfortably, and there were some good tackles going in from Al Hollingsworth and Guy etc. I still thought we could soak this up and then break out, but then it all went wrong. Retfiord found some pace in mid field and broke a couple of tackles in the centre to score 7-0, we were all dissapointed and we thought we could work a bit harder and come back but no, Retford did it again 14-0 in exactly the same way. We had the better of the last 10 better never really came close to scoring and Retford had players that could tackle Kurtis where noramlly you would expect thim to skip clear.

Atleast one of stars in the back was having the odd issue with co-ordination, probably caused by the night out and no sleep.

Retford were just playing as more of a team, they won the breakdown and we created very little 2nd phase. I have a theory that we had too many similar players in the pitch and lack a balance of ruckers and maulers and runners and supporters. I am amazed to say this, but this was a games set up for Joe Bryant!

Half time came and we all thought if we could score we could get back into it, but it was not to be early in the 2nd half Retford got a try in exactly the way they had in the first half, they had a very quick 15 but no real stars they were just consistent through the squad and obviously had played with each other for years.

It was hard to work out what was going on, form my position a good 10 yards away from play I could see lots of good tackles going in, from Chris, Guys, Jake, Alex and others

Melbourne now went to pieces and increasing looked for new an suprsing ways to concede tries and give away pocession, crazy passes in our 22, missed kicks, and general madness, probably if we had stuck to the knitting we coudl have kept the score under 30 but we chose not to and soon it was 42-0.

In the first half our own line outs had been a OK but we had not coped with the retford 5 man line, in the 2nd half Toby pivoted and 3 and we did better, and Retford brought on a string of changes, all in the front row.

At 42-0 Retford lost the ref and did some silly things, this allowed Melbourne 10 minutes of pressure, but we could not score, and in the end Retford got one more 47-0

We did not bitch at each other and stayed positive but not much else could be taken from the game, this was our heaviest defeat in the league for 2 years and the first time we had failed to score.

It came down to team work and Retford having a pattern of play that suited them, I am guesing a lot of them had played together for years and many had come down from the their firsts at some points, while we dont have that experience, but could probably match them indidual for individual.

Well played by Retford, far more interesting to lose to them Derby 3rds or Castle Donnington. I hope this win will keep you warm during the 24 hour darkness of the winter etc

Nomination for man of the Match Guy, or Al but I am going with Al Hollingsworth. Thanks to the new chaps I hope this did not put you off and we will have better days closer to Home

Next Week Ilkeston 3rds away (but not too far)