With the side bereft of a number of its players due to the half term holidays and the need to provide players to the U14’s, including Europe’s No1. Goalkeeper Will Macdonald and our midfield dynamo Drew Bickerton, the team travelled to Tinsley still confident of a win against what appeared from their stats to be a relatively weak Sheffield team.
Confronted with a pitch not much larger than an A4 sheet of paper - OK it was a little bigger than that but you get the picture Mellor started slowly in the first quarter, in what is now becoming a regular, if somewhat unwelcome, tradition. The Sheffield team proved to be physical and determined opponents who made up for their relative lack of skills through commitment and hard work. Mellor initially struggled to win possession from ground balls and turned over possession too quickly by being far to direct on the small picture. However toward the end of the quarter Mellor began to dominate and play some good quality lacrosse leaving the score at 4-2 after a scrappy first 10 minutes or so.
The second quarter saw the Mellor boys wake up. They matched Sheffield on the ground ball and then made extra use of the additional possession and scored a further three goals without reply. Mellor put in extra effort on the ride and as a consequence often recovered the ball before it had reached their half of the pitch. When it did make it across the halfway line some excellent defending from both Josh Haining and Joe Kynaston meant it was not long before the ball was heading back towards the Sheffield goal. The end of the half saw Mellor leading by 7 goals to 2 and in control of the game.
Unfortunately, straight after half time the small pitch effectively swung the game temporarily in Sheffield’s favour. Winning the initial face off the Sheffield player was able to take a hard ‘long’ range shot which beat Ned in goals. The small pitch meant that this long range shot was not in fact that long, and at the face off, with the restraining line restricting our defence from advancing before possession was called, their face off man had time to pick up the ball and shoot before he could be reached by any defender. The Sheffield face off man then immediately repeated this trick a further three times one after another bringing the score to 7-6 in a matter of minutes following the half time break. Eventually, Ben Tipping was able to break the cycle, win the face off and Mellor once again resumed some degree of control. Mellor reverted to losing the ground ball battles and a time out was called by coach Shonfeld to steady the ship and address the complacency that had set in. Mellor completed the quarter on a more even keel with the back three now firmly in control stopping any offensive threat on the break and six on six Sheffield were unable to find a way through the Mellor zone. Although we still struggled with the determined efforts of the Sheffield team on the ground ball we were able to score with a fine under pressure feed from Joe Kynaston from his own half (the small pitch did have some advantages with Josh Haining also assisting on two goals from his own half!) to bring the gap to 8-6 at three quarter time.
The opening of the fourth quarter saw Mellor again compete on the ground ball and the additional possession this gave us resulted in three unanswered goals taking the score to
11 – 6. With the game becoming scrappy in the last 5-10 minutes Sheffield scored two further goals and Mellor added one final goal to run out deserved 12-8 winners in a very hard fought and at times physical game.
As a team performance it was mixed – when it was good it was very very good, but when it was bad it was awful! Going forward we continue to generally play quality attacking lacrosse with a willingness to find and make the extra pass to score. The back three remain very strong and continue to improve week on week. We have definitely improved in recent weeks in discipline on defence from the midfield, riding the opposition and winning groundballs but we still lack consistency in these key areas which is why this game ebbed and flowed as it did. There was of course an impact from the missing players – no team can lose those kinds of players and not have it affect the performance to some extent.
That having been said it was a pleasing performance overall from the team against a very physical Sheffield team .The score line did not really reflecting our true dominance, distorted as it was by the four quick Sheffield goals after half time, which reflected the size of the pitch rather than any special shooting skills on their part.
Individually, everyone contributed to the win but the following deserve particular mention for their contributions. At the back Josh Haining had another strong game with 7 knockdowns, most of which disrupted fast breaks. He was more than ably supported by Joe Kynaston who is continuing to improve week on week in all aspects of his defensive play. He responded well to the physical play from Sheffield which seemed to bring out some needed aggression in his play. This showed with some strong body and stick checking (it is always encouraging for the coaches and the team to see the oppositions attack having their stick knocked from their hands by your defencemen, especially if they can do it without picking up a penalty!). In turn Alex Chalmers, as the new boy on the block, continues to develop as a defender and gave another solid performance. On our clear all three showed great handling skills, often under pressure, to ensure we cleared the ball effectively and created breaks and goal scoring opportunities on numerous occasions throughout the game.
In midfield George Shonfeld had yet another strong game and was ably supported by Sam Griffiths whose versatility saw him playing midfield and attack. Jamie Mochan added another solid performance to his tally and scored one of the better quality Mellor goals to chalk up the first of what will undoubtedly be many more goals in the future.
Up front Tom Brady was as hard working as ever with some great cuts, feeds and tireless chasing on the ride. He was ably supported by both Ollie Hague and Jack Royal both who played well and supported our strongest attacking players well.
However, the standout performance came from Ben Tipping who put in a great hard working and unselfish display. His efforts were rewarded with many timely ground ball wins, quality checks on the ride, excellent work on the zone defence, especially on man down situations, and two goals plus two quality assists going forward making him clearly our man of the match despite some tough competition from Sam Griffiths and the boys at the back.
Knockdowns
Josh Haining 7
Joe Kynaston 2

Goals & Assists

Sam Griffiths 4 goals
Ben Tipping 2 goals, 2 assists
Tom Brady 2 goals
George Shonfeld 2 goals
Josh Haining 1 goal, 2 assists
Jamie Mochan 1 goal
Joe Kynaston 1 assist