U13 minxes resist Stafford fight back to win

A slightly further afield fixture takes the minxes across the border to the Stafford Roses.
10 minxes made the journey to Stafford Hockey & Cricket Club as Stafford RFC are having new facilities built.

Right from the very first kick the minxes were switched on as Evie chased the kick all the way to the try line only to be deemed as having gone dead, so back for a scrum in the middle of the pitch. Abigial hooked the ball from Staffords put in and Delia was on hand to receive the pass and make yards up the pitch before the offload was made to support runner Kezia quickly followed by good hands to Abigail who released Evie to crash over and score. The girls desire to keep the ball alive saw a short period of panic passing even when the offload wasn't on, a few coaching words from the James saw them regroup, refocus and look after the ball. The minxes dominated from every restart kick that Stafford put their way, and powerful runs were quickly emerging from Delia, Mya & Abby. Deep in our own half the ball came out to Fearn and she ran forward with determination before being tackled and a pop pass was quickly made to Kezia who carried on the run only to be held up just short of the try line, thankfully Delia was there this time and quickly scooped the ball up and went over to score.

Melbourne 10 - Stafford 0

The second quarter continued in pretty much the same way, the speed around the field from all the girls was exciting to watch. They were not afraid to run through players and all of them made yards each time they got the ball in hand. Eleanor was very dominant in this quarter and managed to get over the try line three times, one such time was when we were point deep in our own 22 and Evie kicked over and the ball went all the way down the field (almost dead) but Eleanor managed to chase it all the way and it just bounced right for her to dive on it and score . James bowed down in appreciation of such a fine kick and great run by Eleanor !

Melbourne 8 - Stafford 0

At half time, James went and spoke to Stafford and offered to swap the teams about to make it a more even contest. However, the Stafford coach declined saying the Roses needed to work harder.

To be fair they did, as in the third and fourth quarters Melbourne had to work harder to get results. Stafford's rucking was great and they put in some good solid tackles. Sadly we took an injury and lost a player during quarter 3 due to Alicia getting studded on the back of her hand / wrist so she was replaced and we were lent a Stafford Rose onto our team.

Another solid performance from the all the minxes, decent tackles good positioning in rucks and powerful carries.
We are enjoying a few weeks break now over Christmas and we look forward to the second half of the season in the New Year.