On a cold and frosty Saturday morning (with no coffee or bacon sandwiches to warm us up!!!) Mellor faced one of their old foes. The first 5 minutes was a game of chess with neither side being able to break each other down. Ollie Hague had the best chance in the opening minutes for Mellor but Cheadle had the majority of position. However, they couldn’t make it pay with some wayward shooting and a couple of good saves from Will.

Sam and Tom settled the nerves with a couple of goals and Rufus was unlucky to have one disallowed. As the first quarter drew to a close, Mellor were fortunate to go in 3-0 up due to an own goal from Cheadle’s goalkeeper.

Mellor got into the swing of things in the second quarter and Ben Tipping went on a mazy run and passed to Rufus to make it 4-0. Sam soon picked up his second and Tom was repaid for his persistence when he intercepted from defence and put it past the Cheadle goalie. Half time – 6-0 to Mellor.

At the beginning of the third quarter Cheadle asked questions of Mellor and their player of the game (#9) scored to make it 6-1. However nice work from Sam on the wing found Drew in space who finished to restore a 6 goal advantage. Rufus then went on one of his usual runs and finished bottom corner to make it 8-1. Cheadle’s #9 brought one back but at the end of the third quarter Drew passed to George and a nice fake shot set up his first of the match. 9-3 to Mellor.

The final quarter saw Ned go in goals and Will step up front. It started well with Ben Tipping scoring from the face off. Ned kept the score line at 10-3 with a couple of fine saves. The passing game of Mellor never got going (was it the sun, was it the cold or was it the crowd weren’t as vocal due to a serious thirst?) but the final two goals saw some nice passes from Sam to man of the match Josh Haining and finally Will to put the gloss on a mediocre performance. Mellor 12 – Cheadle 3.

For the man of the match to be Josh Haining it showed that this result wasn’t as easy as it looks from the score line. Mellor will need to play more as a team next week with Stockport next up!

Goals:

Tom Brady – 2
Josh Haining – 1
Will Macdonald – 1
Drew Bickerton – 1
George Shonfeld – 1
Ben Tipping – 1
Sam Griffiths – 2
Rufus Lancaster – 2
Own goal – 1

Assists:

Tom Brady – 1
Drew Bickerton – 1
George Shonfeld – 1
Sam Griffiths – 3

MOTM – Josh Haining