Having beaten Cheadle / Cheadle Hulme (CCH) quite convincingly in the first game of the season, Mellor were hoping to get back to winning ways with todays game whilst securing a place in the next round of the cup. Cheadle pulled their strong players back from U16s to make it a much more even game.

It wasn’t long before CCH put in the first of 3 goals to take a lead that was already going to be hard to catch. Mellor looked shaky and far from their best when Jamie made his first appearance since his injury lobbing the goalie from the other side of the half way line. This not only got us on the score sheet but also seemed to lift the spirits of the team. The first quarter was lost but at least we knew we could score.

In the second quarter Mellor started to show some spirit with goals for Josh and Jack L. CCH were still playing with confidence and extended their lead to 8 – 4 by half time.Some tough talking from the coaches seemed to help and Mellor started to get thing right in the second half with more goals from Jamie and Will who continued to work hard throughout the field. Some excellent defending from Noah and good goalkeeping from Fredrick helped Mellor to pull back to within just 2 goals of the visitors but we were still trailing as we went into the final quarter.

This was it, all to play for and just 15 minutes of the game remaining. Josh caught what looked like an impossible ball and buried it. He quickly scored a second which we thought had brought us equal but it was disallowed much to the disappointment of the team and parents alike. This was followed by more bad news and CCH scored again, putting them back in front.With as little as 5 minutes remaining it wasn’t looking good but the team dug deep. Jamie set up a smart "Man Up" plan to feed Josh twice who obliged by popping 2 goals in within the last 90 seconds.

This wasn’t our best performance and in the words of the coach “they made it look hard work”. CCH really deserved a win today but we got there and we are in the next round. Well done boys.

The plaudits today go to Noah who had his best Mellor game ever - great in possession, full of tricks, superb handling and played a part in several goals too - its clear how much extra practise he is putting in. We even managed to get to the final whistle before giving him an ice-pack!!