No excuses, the best team on the day won. After heroic work to get the game on by Martin and Rick, the hard bouncy surface was always going to be testing for both teams.

Mellor started off well with a Sam feed to Tom who opened the scoring for Mellor. Norbury were quickly ahead though, the first an unlucky own goal down purely to the conditions, and they followed this up with a quick 2nd. As the quarter developed Mellor started to pass the ball well and George set up Sam with a superb pass to equal the scores before a fantastic solo run from George led to a deserved goal for a 3-2 lead at the end of the first 1/4. The 2nd quarter was a bit of a see-saw as both teams played some good lacrosse, especially given the conditions, with the teams swapping goals. The impressive Sam and George were involved in everything good that Mellor did and when Joey scored a great goal to take Mellor into a 6-4 lead it looked like Mellor where starting to get on top. However, a combination of very sloppy defending and strong Norbury runs led to a 6-6 Half Time score.

The 3rd quarter started well with George again feeding Sam to give Mellor the edge 7-6. However that was as good as it got as Mellor folded. Defensively weak challenges from the midfield and the defenders let the Norbury players run through with ease to leave Ned exposed and they quickly scored 4 unanswered goals as the score moved to 7-10 at the end of the 3rd. Mellor seemed to lose confidence all over the pitch and wayward shots in attack when they had chances summed up a poor quarter – however it then got worse....

In the 4th quarter Sam joined Tom and Eddie in attack, in what was a bold move, but which left the midfield weaker and unfortunately let Norbury become even more dominant as their physical size was a mis match for Mellor’s midfield and defence and they were able to completely dominate the quarter scoring 5 more goals to 2 for Mellor, inevitably one each for Sam and George. The match ending Mellor 9 Norbury 15.

The main reason for the result today was that the boys were unable to cope with Norbury’s direct runs which led to some soft goals whereas Norbury defended very well and Mellor had to work harder to get their openings. If these 2 teams meet again then a tactical rethink will be needed about how to deal with Norbury’s dominant players as well as some hard training for the boys in tougher but fairer and effective defending which was particularly poor today, especially many of the needless and careless dismissals from a number of the players. On a day with few positives, Sam and George played magnificently and Ned continues to improve with some good saves. It also served as a reminder that Mellor are a relatively young team who have punched above their weight this season at times and today their skills were not enough to win through. Now to focus on the cup and reaching a 4th consecutive semi-final for the U12’s!

Goals – Sam (5), George (2), Tom and Joey (1). Assists George (5), Sam and Jack (1)

Men of the match - George and Sam - Carried the team from start to finish and helped to stop an even bigger defeat