Mud was the order of the day as Mellor were hosted by Heaton Mersey. Normally a very competitive fixture, this week Mersey were not at full strength with 8 of their players away but great credit to them for wanting a game, playing a number of u12s up and hosting us at short notice.

We started strongly taking a 3-1 lead in the first quarter with good movement off the ball and some easy on the eye passing, although there were more handling errors than usual given the conditions, leading to a lot of battles for the ground ball, which was not the strongest part of our game today.

It’s easy to forget from the sidelines just how tiring it is running through sticky mud and with just 11 players, there was limited scope for rotation, although the move to 9-aside at Q2 helped.

We moved to 9-5 in the third quarter and finished the game at 12-7, although the gap could have been more but for some shooting being a little wide of the mark (blame the mud in the stick!). Stand out points included some great distribution by Ned and strong defending today from Joey. A particular well done to the middies, for showing some great fitness on difficult ground which is energy sapping to say the least. Whilst the attack showed great passing for a number of the goals which showed off our skills at their best despite the tricky conditions.

Well done. It was great to have a competitive game after 3 weeks but here’s hoping for a dryer spell before the next set of games!

Goals

Tom – 4
Jamie – 3
Josh – 2
Sam – 2
George – 1

Match Report: Cirion Plant