After the huge turnout last week Melbourne arrived at the Alma with a much depleted team, none of the injuries from the previous week had healed and a few folk were having a week off.

As we left the team was fairly prop heavy with Josh, Duckie, George, Dave Lowson, Toppo, Steve Bell, John James and Gordon Sparks, Karl at Scrum Half, then Deano, Steve Wales, Another, Tom Line, Tom his mate and we were wating on Maurice stuck in traffic John Wayne and little Watti,

We are arrived at the Alma at 12 mid day leaving us two and a qtr hours to drive the 500 yards to West Bridgeford, so we arrived in plenty of time. Maurice did the decent thing and turned up but there was no site of the other two. The West Bridgeford team that had beaten us on several occassions by big scores in recent seasons, looked young and fit and there were a lot of them.  West Bridgeford did the decent thing and loaned us a lad called Tom.

We kicked off expecting to be gubbed but it was n't so bad, we had them in the scrums and the West Bridgeford team knocked on and fumbled a lot of the ball they had. From the beginning they had us in the line outs not because we were particullaly crap, but because they were very good. The towering figure of Gordan Sparkes going up against someone twice his height.

The ref seemed a nice guy but still gave the majority of penalties to West Bridgeford. Eventually the scored following a series of missed tackles, 7-0. Melbourne got on the front foot and went onto score Duckie through the ball in the lineout, West Bridgeford got it, but the ball was knocked out of their hands by Melbourne and Steve Bell surge through to pick up the ball and score 7-5.

Melbourne was playing agaisnt a strong wind so if we could hold on we would have a chance in the 2nd half. We continued to fight hard against a mobile team but West Bridgeford score two more tries. 19-5 at half time.

At half time we were quite pleased with our efforts, if we could mess with their scrums, get a bit of ball in the line and use the wind, we may have a chance, but as so often this was not to happen from the kick off West Bridgefored scored two quick tries and our heads fell a bit. Gordon had to go off injured and Maurice started limping badly, we borrowed two more players from West Bridgeford (very good of them) we got Alex a student who by his own admission was still pissed and a guy who had never played rugby before who turned out to be very good.

The 2nd half wasn’t a procession of West Bridgeford tries, but for all our huffing and puffing we really did nt look like scoring, a couple of the West Bridgeford tries were a bit dubious. In the scrums West Bridgeford had sharpened up and were  now holding there own, in the lines we did anything we could to mess up West Bridgeford, throwing the ball long and hoping for the best. We kept trying though. A special mention to Karl who was really good at scrum half, feisty quick etc etc, and Josh who was up against the ex Derby First team front row player who although 97 years old was still probably quite good, and Josh did very well.

In the end the score was 57-5, West Bridgeford were very sporting, with our best 2nd team out we could have run them close I think, we needed a bit more pace in the back row, that it did nt have when Gordon went off.