Mayfield Rugby League

15/03/2008 Mayfield 22 Thornhill Trojans 22

15/03/2008 Mayfield 22 Thornhill Trojans 22

By “Mad Mal The Mauler”

Well at least the rain stayed away and unfortunately so did Mayfield’s form of late! As I stated in my previous post “They are just one place above the relegation zone and these are the sides that can spring surprises due to their situation!” and this came back to haunt us!

Within the first few minutes the old warhorse Richard Pachniuk showed he still had the old guile if not the speed of old when he broke through the static Mayfield defensive line only to find himself without support and brought to a halt!

On the 7th minute saw referee Mr Dean reach for the first of his extensive ‘pack of cards’ by despatching Komah Nuamatua to the sin bin for a high shot of Thornhill’s fullback Johnny Campbell. Opting for the kick, James Craven’s attempted two pointer drifted wide!

Only a couple minutes later Ryan Douglas and Johnny Campbell had a bit of an altercation on the touchline and for some inexplicable reason Mr Dean dealt his 2nd yellow of the game…….to Danny Chrimes, who was nothing to do with the incident! The two involved getting nothing?

A penalty on 14 minutes for a high shot on Douglas by No7 Liam Morley saw Grant Bithel slot the kick over for Mayfield to take the lead 2 – 0

The 20th minute saw the Trojans take the ball forward and with the aid of two blatant forward passes ending up with No5 Michael Stewart diving over in the right hand corner, Liam Morley unable to improve 2 – 4

Thornhill had another chance to stretch their lead on 24 minutes after another penalty, but Morley’s kick went a country mile wide!

In the 27th minutes with the Trojan’s pressing the Mayfield line No17 Anthony Harris took a sweet pass at full tilt to blast through from close range to plant the ball under the crossbar. This time James Craven made no mistake in slotting over to convert 2 – 10

Almost immediately from the restart Thornhill No6 Scott Dyson belted a cracking 40/20 to gain head and feed at the scrum from which the next play saw yet another penalty for a reaping the ball out, Dyson gratefully taking the two points 2 – 12

The tussle continue with plenty of lost balls and knock ons from both sides until Scott Dyson repeated his 40/20 to put Mayfield on the back foot once again! Taking the ball initially to the left, Thornhill then switched direction to the right and some nifty passing out to the right wing saw Michael Stewart again getting in at the corner, This time Dyson failed to improve, which brought a very lacklustre Mayfield half to an end 2 – 16

After the break Mayfield seemed to come out with a little more steel about them and on 45 minutes, Jonathon Muir smashed his way through several defenders on the halfway line to slip a great pass to the supporting Grant Bithel to go in under the sticks, Bithel converting his own try 8 – 16

On 50 minutes with Mayfield once again putting a lot of pressure on the Trojan’s defence saw Ben Heaton flick a pass, backwards between his legs from a play-the-ball, into Carl Abraham’s hands for a touchdown in the corner. Bithel’s superb conversion from the right touchline brought Mayfield back to within two points at 14 – 16.

In Mayfield’s next attack Steve Gartland had the ball in hand and shaped to kick, at which point the Trajan’s defenders backed off, so Garts opted to scoot through passing to Ben Heaton who then copped a high one round the neck leading to another penalty which Bithel took to level the scores at 16 – 16

The Trojans came close again when Andrew Peacock got over the Mayfield whitewash, but was held up in goal! With the opportunity to score slipping away Scott Dyson took a pot shot with a drop goal from 20 metres to once more take the lead 16 – 17

In the 65th minute the comedy of errors started in earnest with Mr Dean showing first a white card?, then a yellow card and then his final decision…….a red card for Ryan Douglas for an alleged elbow when all he did was charge down a Scot Dyson kick following through and flattening the player, perfectly legally imo. Terrible refereeing!

66 minutes saw Pachniuk break through the disorganised Mayfield ranks and gave a great pass to Johnny Campbell on his shoulder to score at the side of the posts. How Scott Dyson missed the kick only he knows? 16 – 21

A couple of plays after the restart saw Steve Wood break away with Stewart in pursuit, but Steve didn’t see Campbell cutting diagonally across the pitch to cut him off 5 metres out with an excellent try saving tackle. The next (high) tackle saw Thornhill No10 James Folan sent to the sin bin!

Pete Draper then was brought up short inches away trying to burrow in under the defence! 74 minutes saw Mr Dean again brandishing a yellow for Thornhill No13 Scott Green for yet another head high tackle. Before Mr Dean could put his deck away he showed a red card to Thornhill No14 Danny Lee for presumably a similar offence.

On 37 minutes with all this confusion in the Trojan’s defence big Chris Brett took advantage and smashed his way through the depleted defence for a gratefully accepted Mayfield try. Grant Bithel stepped up to take the pressure kick and coolly slotted it over to take the lead 22 – 21.

Up-the-jumper time with only a minute or so to go? No way, first mistake was Ben Nuamatua collecting the ball in goal and instead of bringing it away, inexplicably PASSED the ball FORWARD to Rob Kershaw resulting in Thornhill getting head and feed at the scrum 10 metres out, but with so many players now spectators, only formed a three man scrum where Mr Dean then stopped the clock surely illegally? When ball came out of the scrum Pachniuk managed to make the drop goal to level the scores at 22 – 22

Mayfield sure snatched a draw out of the jaws of victory………unbelievable?

To Thornhill Trojan’s credit they never stopped trying against a very under-par Mayfield side. Richard Pachniuk, Johnny Campbell, Anthony Harris, Danny Lee and Scott Dyson were outstanding in their fight for Premier League survival and on this show they deserve to stay in the division!

While Mayfield certainly had several key players absent that was no excuse for what was probably the worst performance of the season and the lads knew it? Next week it is Leigh Miners Rangers away and they ARE on form. A hard ask after today!

Referee Mr Chris Dean showed more cards than a table of players at Poker Millions while not policing the basic laws of the game and was very poor to both sides!

Thornhill’s M.o.t.M. Richard Pachniuk
Mayfield’s M.o.t.M. Grant Bithel