With a squad as small as Mellor’s any key players lost to injury will have a big effect on the shape of the team and the way they play. Will Macdonald was out with a thumb injury and his place in goal was filled by Josh Poke in the first half and Drew Bickerton in the second. Both stand-in keepers played well and made good saves but the loss of them from the outfield contributed to this defeat.
That said, Brooklands/Rochdale were a very good team and could well have beaten a full strength Mellor. The final score was a good reflection of a game that got more competitive as it went on. In the end the best team won. Mellor were overrun in the first quarter and were lucky to be only 5-0 down. They shipped another 4 goals in the second quarter before finally pulling back the score to 9-2. It’s been a long while since Mellor were this far behind and they were missing Josh Poke up front and Dan Jones in the middle. That was corrected in the second half and Mellor had a fantastic third quarter with Josh Pink, Dan Jones and Josh Poe combining well to score some great goals to bring the scores to a more respectable 11-7. What was making the difference was the engine of Will Tadman in the middle of the park, cutting out Brooklands attacks and battering his way through to feed the forwards. In the fourth Mellor tired a bit and Brooklands/Rochdale got over the scare of the third and played some patient lacrosse to notch up another 4 goals. Mellor scored two more to reach 15-9 by the end but they had set themselves a mountain to climb with the poor first half display. It wasn’t all bad news, there was a lot of spirit to the team in the second half and hopefully with a full strength squad they will have better games this season.
GOALS – Josh Pink 5, Dan Jones 2, Josh Poke 2
ASSISTS – Josh Pink 1, Dan Jones 4, Ben Tipping 1, Josh Poke 1
SAVES – Josh Poke 5, Drew Bickerton 4
Man of the match – Will Tadman for being a great athlete and having a really positive attitude to a difficult game
Match Reporter - Dominic Macdonald