Milford Marlins 42 Rochdale Mayfield 12

A catalogue of missed tackles, unforced errors and needless penalties saw Mayfield on the wrong end of a hiding in Leeds on Saturday.

Milford, with probably the best half backs in the division, were never going to be an easy team to beat but a below par Mayfield performance made their task a lot easier.

From the kick off the huge Milford centres and second rowers made life difficult for their opposite numbers, bursting onto the ball at speed and breaking tackles all over the pitch.

Missed tackles out wide allowed the big centre in for an early score. Mayfield tried hard and Tod O’Brien was held up over the line as he tried to level the scores but Milford just proved too strong building a half team lead of 20 – 0. Only some resolute defending from Ben Butterworth, Sammy Sampson and Carl Abraham prevented the score being a lot worse.

Within five minutes of the restart Milford had increased their lead as quick play the balls caught the defence out. Mayfield then had something of a purple patch as some crunching tackles from Eric Johnson and Simon Moore gave their team mates some much needed confidence, John Foy, Aiden Gleeson and Ieaun Higgs were unlucky not to score before Taurean Sheehan made the break chipped the oncoming defenders re-gathered and put in the perfect cross field kick for big Simon Moore who rose above everybody to take the ball and score a Higgs converted try.

The next twenty minutes were end to end as Milford got a score back then a fantastic break from Abraham saw Foy get on the end of the pass and sprint 50 metres for the try, Higgs again converted. 30 -12 and Mayfield were having their best spell but the loss of Johnson, through injury , saw them lose the impetus and Milford claimed two more converted tries in the last fifteen minutes.

If on the day Mayfield had cut out the mistakes and the penalties they would have restricted Milford’s scoring opportunities and the score would have been more respectable, as it is they didn’t and they paid the price all they can do now is learn from this and take that lesson forward into next weeks fixture.

Ben Butterworth lead the way in defence and was helped in no small way by Carl Abraham and Simon Moore who, although he came off the bench, still managed to top the tackle count. Going forward, Rob Kershaw and Tod O’Brien made yards every time they touched the ball and they were lead all the way by man of the match Taurean Sheehan.

Squad. Rob Kershaw, Christian Duffy, Carl Abraham, Sean Snape, John Foy, Taurean Sheehan, Ben Duffy, Aiden Gleeson, Tod O’Brien, Saqib Murtza, Ben Butterworth, Terry Whaley, Eric Johnson, Matty Moores, Simon Moore , Ian Sampson. Ieaun Higgs