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Melbourne
were looking forward to a nice run out in the Derbyshire Cup against Ripley Rhinos
but they opted not play us and gave us a bye to the next round and we found ourselves
against Belper in the NLD Cup, a very different proposition.
Match Report
Despite us beating
Belper at home 3 weeks ago Belper away is always a tough fixture and no one could
ever remember an easy match there.
Melbourne had a full strength team, but
due to the Crockers party the night before Biggins had to sit on the subs bench
as he was still drunk. Devany turned up a bit late but all in all we had a strong
team and the Belper team did not look as serious as the one we played in the league.
  
There
was little wind but the pitch was the usual Belper tar pit, that slowed down even
the nimblest player. From the kick off Melbourne were on top, the line out on
the Belper 22 followed by a good Melbourne forward drive lad to a penalty within
a couple of Minutes 3-0 and the more good work by the forwards saw Euan put fully
in for a try near the posts, unconverted, 8-0 after less than 5 minutes.
Melbourne
were over Belper pinching line outs, turning over ball at mauls and rucks and
bossing the scrums, a few minute later, from a penalty Euan made a break and scored
himself again unconverted. 13-0 and still the first qtr, it seemed easier than
the last time we met.
Belper then got their act together, they swapped
round the scrum and made them uncomfortable for Melbourne and Melbourne gave a
way a few penalties. Melbourne still had the bulk of the ball and territory but
could do nothing with it, nobody really broke the gain line and made a decisive
break and the Belper backs pushed up our ours quickly (possibly off side), the
state of the pitch meant that even Stringer could be caught.
In the end
Belper did get into Melbourne Territory and following a tapped penalty scored
an unconverted try 13-5. Before the interval Euan slotted another penalty 16-5
at half time.
Melbourne had done OK, but it really felt as if we should
have been further ahead.
  
In the second half normal service was resumed with
Melbourne having the bulk of the ball, Melbourne won all the line out ball, and
generally had the better in the loose. Euan got another Penalty 19-5 Belper had
one long haired player who seemed to be able to skip over the muddy surface with
no issues, maybe he had webbed feet or something.
Melbourne were guilty
of being greedy on occasion, Captain Merve made a number of substitutions including
him self with Middleton, Lucas and Merve going off and Biggins, Bennett and Brown
coming on, Keirs first touch was a belter as he was wiped out by a Belper centre.
There was a touch of indiscipline creeping in without Merve and for one
of the few occasions when Belper got into the Melbourne half, they scored from
a short penalty out wide with a 2 man overlap whilst we were still moaning at
each other 19-10
Melbourne did re assert them selves and got another penalty
22-10, but also missed a couple of kicks that would have put us out of sight.
The last 10 minutes were played out without too much bother for Melbourne Keir
tried to start a fight and we came close to scoring a couple of times but in the
end the game ended in a bit of whimper final score 22-10.
  
I am not sure
what went wrong, if anything we were more dominant than when we played at our
place, but we could not convert this into points, either the backs got very slow
ball, were a bit static, or Belper were offside, but either way too often a Melbourne
play maker got man and ball.
The main winner may have been the pitch
Still
a win at Belper is a fine result and this is the largest in living memory so we
should be pleased.
Good pie, chips and peas in the club house and lots of
Christmas spirit. Merve was named man of the match by Belper
Nice to see
all the players in Christmas costumes especially the elves, it was disappointing
that Foster still came a yogi bear despite it being very clear that it was a Christmas
theme.
  
Team
- Birchall
- Lakin
- Lowson
- Judge
- Walsh
- Macer
- Barr
- Lucas
- Devany
- Holden
- Middleton
- Foster
- Fulton
- Stringer
- Sylvestor
- Brown
- Biggins
- Bennett
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