Rugby league: Mayfield 28 - 18 Castleford Lock Lane

Mayfield started the season with a hard fought but well deserved win at Mayfield Sports Centre on Saturday 4 March. With two enforced changes from the now famous Cornwall victory, Mayfield were confident going into this one. The visitors, Castleford Lock Lane are hotly tipped to do well this season so nothing less than a hard game was expected.

Mayfield needed to start well and they looked the better side in the opening ten with good ball movement and intelligent play. Sean Penkywicz lead the way with smart play from acting half. It was one of Penky's runs that created his sides first try as he put Ben Metcalfe over from short range, although the conversion proved too far out for Devlin Long, 4 - 0.

Lock Lane showed they are a good side as they came straight back at Mayfield with their hooker leading the way, but great defence from Callum Ogden, Seta Talatoka and Joe Taira kept them out. Both teams slogged it out and Mayfield could have gone further in front but Kristian McVeigh just couldn't ground the ball after a great effort to cross the line after exceptional work from Wayne English and Dakota Tolhurst.

Only a good scrambling effort kept the visitors out after an interception from a speculative Dec Sheridan pass saw them race toward the line. Lewis Butterworth was more than up to the challenge as he snubbed out the threat. Mayfield regained possession and Sam Wright lead them upfield, Devlin Long and Dec Sheridan were running the show now and the latter again showed he is getting back to his best on a rugby pitch as he dropped a little inside ball to Joe Taira who was unstoppable from 5 metres out. Long added the two, 10 - 0.

From the restart Mayfield tightened their grip on the game with a brilliant piece of rugby, Taira made yards up field then produced a great offload to the supporting Dec who in turn found Travis Long. Trav made 20 metres before he too offloaded in the tackle to his brother Devlin who found fullback Harry Sheridan up in the line, Harry was untouchable as he raced 40 metres to score the try. Long converted to make it 16 - 0 at half time.

The game should have been won at this stage and when Mayfield turned the screw at the start of the second half with Harry Sheridan's second that should have been it, 22 - 0.

Everything was looking good, Nick Hargreaves, Callum Ogden, Talatoka and Metclafe were all running and defending well, Dev Long, Wright and Sheridan were running the middle. Then for some reason it all went wrong. The ball was dropped from the restart and the reintroduction of their influential hooker seemed to be the catalyst for the Castleford side; they suddenly clicked into gear and everything seemed to work for them. Mayfield still defended well and kept them out when their big number 10 tried to crash over but they couldn't deal with a neat little kick from  the 9 and their scrum half nipped through to register the first points on the board for Lock Lane, 22 - 6.

 

 

It was a real cliched game of two halves now as Lane took control for the next thirty minutes scoring two more converted tries to narrow the gap to 22 - 18.

The nerves were jangling but Mayfield showed they have true class in their ranks now and are a team with confidence as well as ability. 

The hard working forwards again got them up field where the brilliant Sheridan shrugged off a cynical high tackle to find Devlin Long who again showed how strong he is as he carried two defenders over the line and converted to seal the game, 28 - 18.

The man of the match award was split between Harry Sheridan and Dakota Tolhurst.

This was a good victory for Mayfield and an important start to their campaign but like last week in Cornwall there were times when they almost threw it away. The team are still getting used to each other and as that familiarity comes so will even better performances on the field, this really is going to be a season filled with promise and hopefully Mayfield will deliver.