Saturday saw Mellish kick off their Midlands 4 East (North) campaign with a strong win against a plucky Meden Vale side, writes Matt Bright.
After the controlled win in the cup the previous week against Tupton, the game began at a frantic pace with possession changing sides quickly. This allowed Meden Vale to get a foothold in the contest with the matches first three points from the long range boot of their fly half.
With this, Mellish seemed to settle into the game and started to work their structures and this allowed them to put Meden Vale on the back foot, after a kick to the corner and from the resulting line-out Mellish set a good driving maul, which saw No. 8 Dave Mason dart down the blind side to score in the corner. This was followed up shortly after by a nice team try which came from excellent support play from the forwards and was finished off by captain Joe Dawn. Another successful penalty from the Meden Vale fly half made the half time score, Mellish 14 – 6 Meden Vale.
The second half saw a much more focused Mellish performance with TJ Austin scoring shortly after the restart with a well taken try from the base of a breakdown. This was followed by a quick thinking try from scrum half Ross Pickering who showed his footballing skills to score his first of the game.
A couple more penalties from the Meden Vale fly half kept his sides of the scoreboard ticking over. However a well worked move allowed full back Jonathan Fox to make his way through the defence to score Mellish’s fifth try of the afternoon. This was shortly followed by the sixth, which Adam Downie was able to finish after picking up a pass off his bootlaces to score in the corner. Mellish rounded off the day with a great team try which saw the ball pass through 7 pairs of hands to before being rounded off by Vinnie Square for the final try of the afternoon. With the 5 conversions from Ross Pickering the final score stood at Mellish 45 – 12 Meden Vale.
A great start to the season for a Mellish team which has a number of new faces in it and is a positive sign of things to come. This week see’s the side welcome Worksop to the War Memorial Ground for a 3pm KO. All support is welcome
Mellish Junior Round Up:
Mellish U13’s lost at home to Ashfield U13’s
Amber Valley U14’s 14 – 36 Mellish U14’s
Spalding U15’s 59 – 10 Mellish U15’s
Matlock U16’s 58 – 7 Mellish U16’s
