A brave battle but the better team won.

A cold overcast afternoon met this double header at Malone field as The Mavericks welcomed Prenton back to fortress Malone , as it had been up to today. However Prenton had other ideas , having been beaten the previous week 10-5 by The Mighty MAvericks , prenton weren't going to let that happen again and turned up with a significantly different team from the one that played the previous week. Indeed, only three players who had taken the field the previous week turned out this week.
The Mavericks had the benefit of a slightly bolstered team in respect of Connor,Joe, Matt and Tom all of whom played due to no fixture for the second team, as a result we cannot grumble too much as to the outcome of the day.
It is generally agreed that the better team won, this victory for Prenton was due to a period of twenty minutes immediately prior to half time when The Mavericks lost their usually robust defensive discipline and allowed poor tackling and some ill disciplined loose kicking to gift Prenton opportunities that they ruthlessly exploited to maximum effect.
Having extolled the virtues of an effective bolstered Prenton side, I will attempt to give a summary all be it concise of the match.
Captain Tim started the day taking an executive decision to stand down from the starting line up and as a result The pack adopted the youthful starting line up of Joe, Connor and Craig in the front row, with graham and Chris in the second row with Willow, ,Les and Neil playing in the back row. A highly effective back line up of Jack, Matt Brookes, Andy and Tom in the centres , with Matt Moscrop and Helmet taking up the wide positions on the wings with Del at full back. Straight away The Maverick imposed their will with two very well worked tries. At this stage the author offers his humblest apologies as he does not have the try scores to hand, however best guess indictes that Tom Redfearn was the man at the helm with at least one of them. That rocked Prenton a little to be twelve nil down after ten minutes . The usual hard, fast running attack of THe Mavs seemed to be paying dividends at this stage, however this is we're we stalled and Prenton applied the gas and moved significantly ahead by half time , helped in no small way by the aforementioned poor tackling and poor defensive kicking from hand. It was obvious to all who had eyes what was going wrong and that was quickly remedied by the usual half time talk by Captain TIm. We needed to maintain our discipline and get our collective memories back into gear and remember what it was that made the Mavericks the team they were. To a man everyone on the pitch launched into the second half with a new vigour, tackling was back to its impressive best with nothing getting through the middle of the park. The pack were getting the ascendancy and the backs wer starting to get back on top. The Mavericks finished the day on top getting the last try of the game, a solo effort from long range by Tom sprinting along the wing to touch down. However the indiscipline of the first half gve us to much to do nd the final score was a reflection of The Mavericks against Prenton seconds.
Thanks go to Prenton and to Steve Hearn for stepping up to ref and thanks to the guys from our seconds for assisting on the day .