Newark 10 - Melbourne Chariots 0      Stamford 0 - Melbourne Chariots 0        Matlock 0 - Melbourne Chariots 0        

West Bridgford 10 - Melbourne Saxons 0       Lincoln 5 - Melbourne Saxons 0        Nottingham 5 - Melbourne Saxons 5

Read full report by Kev Brown... 

20^th April 2008 Melbourne u9's NLD CUP & Shield Results

NLD CUP

The draw for the groups stages of the NLD Finals was not kind to Melbourne with the A squad (Chariots) being drawn against last years finalists Newark, and the much fancied  Stamford.

It was important that the A squad got a good start against Newark, and with Thomas Brown, Ben Goddard and James Sookias back off holiday they once again couldn't prevent a really powerful and well drilled Newark side from running in two unanswered tries.  Harry Duffy and Josh Betesta were the pick of the Melbourne Tacklers. Next up were Stamford A who arrived with some reputation, this was an incredibly hard fought match with Melbourne probably edging the contest as far as possession, territory and threat were concerned but despite some super runs by Josh Betesta and Ben Goddard they couldn't cross the Stamford Line, this said there were times when stout defence was needed and in this regard Ewan Ferguson, Max Lowson and Josh Betesta stood up and were counted.

In the CUP play off Melbourne lost the inspirational Harry Duffy in the warm up following a collision with the man mountain James Sookias, and we watched in disbelief as time after time some dogged defence by Matlock denied Melbourne a deserved score, and although the match ended all square the U9's finished off the competition playing some lovely handing and supporting Rugby, led by the efforts of Callan Harvey the ball retention skills of Thomas Brown and the creative running of James Sookias.

The Final showed Nottingham victorious over Newark (a repeat of last year) but Melbourne are clearly amongst maybe two or three teams vying for 3^rd/4^th/5^th spot in NLD , and they should be very proud of that.

NLD Shield

The B squad (the Saxons) also found themselves in the wrong side of the draw finding themselves up against West Bridgford and Lincoln A in their group stages.

In the first match they had no answer to the size of the West Bridgford centre who bagged himself a brace of tries, the Saxons impressed through Charlie Tomlinson  Luke Walsh and Joshua Bowesman-jones.

Against Lincoln Melbourne had their chances and with Wil Bartram, Oli Cope and Peter Williams starting to find their confidence , unfortunately a badly timed mistake led to Lincoln scoring what proved to be the winner.

In the Shield Play off match against Nottingham Melbourne went behind early on and some might have thought that the Saxons might have let their heads fall - Not this bunch, Christian Hile started to come into the game more and George Thomas was making excellent tackles, Melbourne missed a great chance to Level when Daniel Wain crossed the line, with the Melbourne supporters screaming for him to ground the

Ball Daniel kept running in true ‘Forest Gump' style eventually running 20 yards on to the neighbouring pitch ! - looks like you must've missed the training session where we concentrated on touching the ball down Daniel !

Time looked to be running out when Wil Bartram made another excellent penetrating run, and Josh Bowesman-jones was on his shoulder to power over for the equalising score. At the final whistle the Saxons were oushing hard for the winner but the referees whistle de=nied them what would have been a deserved victory.

The U9's lit up the faces of all watching with a hearty renditions of  ‘My Hat', ‘Swing Low' Singing in the rain' and ‘Horses Bum' songs ................  They can't wait for next weeks tour to Blackpool to commence, let's hope the sun shines.

                                                                                    Kevin Brown - Lead Coach