Saturday 5th March 2011 – Match Reports
March 16th, 2011National Conference League Division 1
Stanningley 4-24 Rochdale Mayfield
Rochdale Mayfield forced their way back into the promotion places in the Hatton’s Solicitors National Conference league on Saturday with a fine performance in Leeds against Stanningley.
As to be expected from a team of Stanningley’s stature, the hosts came out with all guns blazing and it took all of Mayfield’s considerable resolve to repel the early onslaught from a team fired up by their vociferous crowd. Repel it they did and then took the lead on 6 minutes when another strong drive from defence by Andrew Moroney drew a penalty in midfield. Ben Simpson rampaged to the line and a quick play the ball and short John Foy pass found Matty Moore in space to touch down. Aidan Gleeson gaoled for a 0-6 lead. Stanningley fought back 5 minutes later when a cross-field kick on the Mayfield line found the defence in two minds and the Stanningley winger took the kick and fell over the line. 4-6 and the scores stayed that way for the rest of the half as the Mayfield line was saved on one occasion by Paul Lane’s never say die defence, and both sides showed strong defence but little in attack. Mayfield in particular gave away too many silly penalties and both teams had to survive 10 minutes down to 12 men as a result of a bout of fisticuffs.
The mood totally changed though in the second half as the Mayfield attack sparked into life. Aidan Gleeson and debutant Taurean Sheehan in particular dug deep to silence the home crowd. On 45 minutes the visiting Mayfield supporters were treated to one of the finest tries ever scored by a Mayfield team as Todd O’Brien went right to the short side on the last tackle, fast hands and text book draw and pass by John Foy, Andrew Moroney and Steve Wood found Kristian Duffy in space on the touchline 15 metres into his own half. Duffy sprinted clear and powered through the clutches of the cover. 40 metres out he met his opposite winger, and showed great pace to pass him with an in and out swerve. Many wingers would have cut in field and took the tackle, but Duffy hugged the touchline and ate up the metres to get to within sight of the of the try line where the home full-back seemed to have him covered – but Duffy had other ideas and left him floundering with a right foot step that took him over the line to the delight of his team mates and the roars of the sizable travelling support. Try of the season, or maybe even the decade!
From that point on Mayfield never looked like losing and further tries from Ian Sampson – who benefited from fast hands and powered over on a great running line, Matt Gartland – who sliced through the defence with a slick show and go 20 metres out, and Ben Namulatua – who backed up Ben Simpson’s midfield bust of the line and took the try scoring pass from Andrew Moroney to sprint in from 30 out. Gleeson goaled the last for a final score line of 4-24 to Mayfield.
A great all round team performance by Mayfield was built on strong defence and enthusiasm and was justly praised by coach Sam Butterworth and celebrated in style until the early hours of Monday morning!
Team; Ben Namulatua, Paul Lane, Steve Wood, Ian Sampson, Paul Lane. Taurean Sheehan, John Foy. Benn Coombes, Todd O’Brien, Ben Simpson, Andrew Moroney, Matty Moore, Aidan Gleeson. Chris Brett, Luke Samson, Matt Gartland, Mark Biggins.
North West Counties Division 4. Mayfield NWC 16 – 23 Cadishead
Mayfield NWC entertained Caddishead on sat 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 hosts 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 realize 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 capitalized 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, saying “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.