Mayfield Rugby League

26/01/2008 Slaithwaite 11 Mayfield B 26

26/01/2008 Slaithwaite 11 Mayfield B 26

By “Curly”

Mayfield’s young third team made the short trip Huddersfield this week to take on Slaithwaite.

The result was never in doubt although Mayfield made hard work of it for long spells.

They started brightly playing some great rugby, with John Marsland dictating play and moving the ball all around the pitch. Good work from Phil Ratu and Andy Taylor allowed Johnny Marsland to slip the ball to Phil Cockayne who carried three defenders over the line for the opening touch down.

Aidy (boomtown)Gleeson and Jack Nuttall then played the roll of creators to set Cockayne up for his second, which Marsland converted. All was going to plan at this stage and when Simon Howe linked up with Paul Hancock to put Marsland over in the corner it looked like the flood gates would open. This was not to be and the resolute home defence channelled Mayfield down the middle of the pitch and this seemed to disrupt the flow of their game.

It must be said that Simon’s young charges were playing some great rugby when they were throwing the ball out wide but for some reason they stopped doing this and their game suffered for it. Slaithwaite pulled a couple of tries back and even popped over a drop goal to make the score 11- 16 to Mayfield.

The introduction of Frank Sinatra sorry I mean Richard Higgs and Adam Pirouette seemed to add a bit more structure and certainly a bit more weight and experience, this opened the Mayfield play up again and normal service was resumed when a good break and an unselfish pass from Higgs put Pirouzan over, this boy’s unstoppable from six inches out.

Both teams slugged it out in the middle of the heavy pitch for the next fifteen minutes until the third team’s very own Aussie import big Deano broke down the middle of the park layed the ball off to Snape who made forty yards before finding Ratu with a peach of a pass which gave him a clear twenty yard run to the line, Marsland converted. 11 – 26 this wound up the scoring in what turned out to be a bit of a damp squib really but a win’s a win as they say.

Dave Banner and Phil Ratu seem to be having their own contest to see who can make the most perfect tackle on the biggest member of the opposition, Ratu just edged it this week for his pearler on the Slaithwaite no 13, Simon Howe tried to join the tackling club but was unceremoniously left flat on his back by, would you believe it the oppositions scrum half, who looked so pleased he repeated the feat seconds later.

The scrum half’s dad commented after the game that “he would be the toast of year 11 when he turned up for school on Monday”. Good individual performances came from Snape and Marsland ably backed by Howe and Banner, but the opposition coach awarded the MOM to Cockayne for his none stop running and re-telling of how he scored his tries.