Mayfield v Normanton

In what turned out to be a scrappy performance from both sides Mayfield took the spoils 28 – 8 against Normanton Knights at the Mayfield Sports Centre on Saturday (20 November 2010).

Normanton started the game well and rocked the home side with their strong defence; this certainly didn’t look like a team that has only won two games all season.

Mayfield kept plugging away and were rewarded after ten minutes when Steve Wood came back on the angle to take a great ball from Todd O’Brien and touch down by the posts, O’Brien converted. Murtza and Robinson were working overtime and combined well to gain good field position which Maroney capitalised on when he broke the line dummied the full back and crossed for the second try, O’Brien converted.

Mayfield then seemed to switch of a bit and allowed the Normanton back into the game. The visitors made the most of this and managed to grab a score to make it 12 – 4. Both sides then relied heavily on their defences for the next fifteen or so minutes, Brett, Atkinson, and Foy in particular did well to keep the opposition at bay.

When O’Brien sneaked over for a typical hooker’s try, which he converted, the crowd thought the floodgates were going to open; Normanton on the other hand had other ideas. Their big full back, who was involved in almost everything they did, managed to make ground and get the ball away for the second rower to pull back a score for his team.

The second half continued much the same as the first although there were glimpses of the class rugby that Mayfield are capable of. Next on the score sheet was Ben Kumai who took a face pass from Gibson that was timed to perfection and went over in the corner.

Normanton never gave up and were unlucky on a couple of occasions when the ball went to ground on the final pass, but they never really had enough to seriously challenge this resurgent Mayfield outfit.

The icing on the cake came when Gibson took the ball at half back, he came across the line and dropped off Maroney who in turn found Robinson coming from deep at an unstoppable pace for the final try of the game which O’Brien converted to complete the scoring.

All in all it was a satisfactory day at the office for Mayfield and the coaches were happy with the two points.

There were some creditable performances most notably from Murtza whose thirst for work is inspiring, Maroney, Robinson and O’Brien. Also on the day Foy, Atkinson and Brett made telling contributions.