Melbourne met to travel to Dronfield in the Pennant at 12am as our journeys over the last few weeks have been so disorganized, this time we arrived a good 90 minutes before kick off and, as there were no opposition, drove about Dronfield looking for them only to find we were in the right place anyway and they were just late.

Match Report

Dronfield now play on a disused bombsite and have some very luxurious portakabins to change in, ours had the ambiance of an H bloc,

The Melbourne team was quite a strong one with Kev Holdgate coming in at prop (bless him) and Gareth (Don't call me Gary) Bain in the 2nd row and Hoodo' returning after a 13 month lay off. The backs were augmented by the flowing locks of Luke Thomas and Pete Ilot and Jake returning from a severe vimto injury he picked up at Liecester Lions.

The weather was gray but dry and the pitch when we had yomped to it turned out to be narrow and sloped heavily. When we saw the Dronfield team we realized what was in store they were big and old and in some cases hairy. We feared that we would have to play in a forwards battle and Dronfield elected to play down the hill with a strong wind from the start. Dronfield started the game with only 13 players but were soon up to a full compliment plus subs.

From the off Melbourne were the more intense of the two teams driving Dronfield back and generally having the bulk of the ball, playing up hill Melbourne won a couple of scrums against the head, got good lineout ball through Bain and Bompie and the backs looked good, the combination of Ridges, Jake and Ilot worked well and all of them made good incisive breaks. In the lose Melbourne were the quicker to the break down and we soon scored two tries both by Pete Ilot, one converted the other missed. 12-0 after about 20 minutes and a real feeling that we could get a hatfull of points as it was clear that Dronfield were getting tired.

However as you would expect Melbourne then had a 15 minute spell of playing some of the worst Rugby imaginable, two of our restarts went into touch, two Dronfield restarts. Were knocked on by wingers deep in our 22, we forgot the line out calls on two occasions, and best of all were caught offside time after time, the worst offender being our beloved captain Nigel. Dronfield could get nowhere near our line but did kick two penalties to make it 12-6. Just before half time, while we were still having a comedy approach to the game we took a quick throw and the ball was quickly recycled by the forwards and past through several hands including marauding music teacher Holdgate for Chas Bennet to score out wide, 17-6 at half time.

At half time we had a bit of a rethink, Dronfield offered nothing out wide and on the narrow pitch we decide to let them get the ball back from rucks and mauls and then fan out and push up in defense and what do you know we actually stuck to the new plan.

For the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half we let Dronfield run on to us and played rope a dope with them until the lost procession and we could break, with Fulton putting in some booming kicks and good runs in the centers.

Soon the tries started to come, with scores for Matt Brown , Chris Fulton following a 20 yard forward drive which was in danger of presenting Kev Holdgate with a try, Dodgie under the posts, and two more for Pete Ilot. 5 of these were converted by Fulton, 52-6.

Some of the tries were scored directly from Dronfield re starts which is always demoralizing. There was a tit for tat smashing of centres with Pete Ilot being wiped out fairly and Chas Bennett taking out one of theirs. Greig came on for Gareth Bain with 20 to go.

The ref who was great all the way through, did try and even it up a bit in the last 10 and gave a lot of penalties to Dronfield but we held out with comfort.

At the final whistle is was nice to see that we had stuck to a game plan and not become to greedy, this was a better performance than the big win at uttoxeter two weeks ago.

Dronfield were good sports and were pleased to have got a team out, they did think we were quite good which is nice, quality pie and peas after the game and Pete Ilot bought a Jug (Honest!!!)

A good result for the 2nds who look like they are going to hold their own in this higher league

Next weeks dress code, come in Normal Dress, clown suit, no-one, jesters hat,. no body else.

The photos were so dull (by Greig) that I could only bring myself to put two on the web site, plus some of the night out a couple of weeks ago

Team

1. Lowson
2. Cox
3. Holgate
4. Breakwell
5. Baines
6. Bompie
7. Sutheran
8. Hudson
9. Oxspring
10. Fulton
11. Bennett
12. Ilot
13. Ridges
14. Thomas
15. Brown
16. Greig Police Chap