Mayfield NWC 16 – 23 Caddishead

Mayfield NWC entertained Caddishead on Saturday (5 March 2011) at the Mayfield Sports Centre hoping to complete the double over the Salford side.

The visitors had other ideas though and within two minutes had taken the lead with an unconverted try from the scrum half after some very suspect defence from the home side.

Mayfield rallied quickly with Simpson and Ellis gaining good ground from where Marsland put in a grubber for Devlin to round the full back and claim the score.

Mayfield were playing some quality rugby now and some good interplay between Lee and Hart again found Marsland in a good position for another kick through, this time it was Hill who managed to ground the loose ball and give his side the lead. Marsland converted 10 – 4.

Old habits then reared their head and several senseless penalties piggybacked the opposition up field and they managed to sneak a soft try on the last tackle catching the home defence half asleep.

Half time 10 – 10 and the game was anybody’s Caddishead upped the pace in the second half and caught the Mayfield side cold, the scrum half once more evaded several would be tacklers to reclaim the lead for his team, they continued to pressure their host’s line and managed somehow to gain five sets of tackles which required a fantastic effort from Mayfield to hold them out with Kelly, Hart and Simpson working overtime.

Mayfield then seemed to realise they were capable of winning this game and began to match the Caddishead side. They were rewarded when Nyland crashed onto a Lee pass and was unstoppable as he scored under the sticks the conversion making it 16 – 16.

At this stage it looked like Mayfield would go on to win this game, with the big Caddishead forwards visibly tiring and the Mayfield pack taking control it seemed to all that this game was there for the taking. A couple of wrong decisions and a couple of dropped balls though prevented a further score and Caddishead worked their way up field where they took the first opportunity and dropped a goal to give them the slenderest of leads.

This appeared to rejuvenate the visitors and they once more lifted their game to stop Mayfield scoring, both sets of players had given everything and there were tired bodies everywhere.

The scrum half who had been a thorn in the Mayfield side all afternoon capitalised on this and jinked his way over the line on the final whistle to seal the game for his side 16 - 23.

Coach Ashworth was disappointed with the defeat but upbeat about his sides performance, he said: “We gave everything today I can’t fault the effort the lads put in. To a man they gave everything. We made a few mistakes and they seemed to score every time we made one but we kept going, never gave in and could realistically have won this easily on another day.”

Andy Lee continued his run of good form taking the MOM he was well supported by Dave Ellis, Joe Hart and James Kelly.

Team James Kelly, Dave Devlin, Craig White, Joe Hart, Sean Hill, Ben Duffy, John Marsland, Duncan Simpson, Paul Hancock, Marc Nyland, Dave Ellis, Jake Johnson, Andy Lee. Subs Ian Kershaw, Gareth Fletcher, Chris Leach, Marvin Connelly.