Gordons Head 3 - Port Sunlight 0

At last the 2018/19 season was underway with the Mavericks running slightly behind everyone else and our first sojourn onto the rugby pitch takes place at Sunny Sunlight.
The Gaffer played the Paul Daniels card and managed a team of 13 players (more of that later)and with a foreboding sense of impending doom travelled down the A41. On arrival was met by the referee to be advised “yeah mate, they’ve only got six”
Ok. Game on .
The usual spirit that is so often talked of at this level kicked in and after 30 minutes of back and forth. Two teams of ten aside took to the turf.
So picture the scene , the Mavs and Sunlight with our wonderfully athletic and youthful teams (sarcasm abounds) were told to play on the first team pitch with ten players and wide open spaces. The look of dread that past of Mike Potters face was a joy to behold.
Sunlight kicked off and the Mavs received into the arms of Gordon Rogers who immediately past the ball out wide two phases later and Andy Smith crashes over to score. Kick off to Wallasey and the ball js kicked to Gordon , who slings the ball out wide and ..... another try. The Gaffer thought this was going to be entirely one way traffic . The Mavericks scored. 40 unanswered points in the first 25 minutes and an apparent slaughter looked on the cards.
However Sunlight had other ideas and just before half time they started to use their main threat. The big man Jack
The Mavs found it near impossible to bring him down apart from using shear numbers and the half time score was 40-7.
Second half started with a resurgent Sunlight putting up a minor fight back and had very quickly put a further three tries on the board to bring the core to a worrying 24-40 in favour of the Mavs. In order to seal off the win and with the help of some creative kicking from the mercurial silver fox himself Del Alderson creating a fabulous run on try for Ryan Williams one final Rey secured the win at 24-54.
This weeks man of the match from The Mavericks was Del Alderson whose performance running from deep , chasing down every opportunity and for scoring the non-penalty try.
A special mention must also go out to Eddie Brown who, after approximately 372 appearances (editorial licence accepted) for the Mavs managed to fall over the try line with the ball in his hand and score his first try for Anselmians. Well done big man. You and Henry should be rightfully proud of your achievements this season.
On a more serious note a call to arms is required as it is concerning to see that at week 1 only two fixtures were honoured in our league and one of those consisted of a team containing six players. A real worrying time for junior rugby on the Wirral and a realisation that unless players commit to playing then there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for fixtures. I sincerely hope that this is not a pattern to follow over the next six months. If we lose social rugby we lose the backbone and that has a direct impact on those senior teams within the club.
We had a staggering amount of unavailability last week and whilst I realise more than most the challenges faced by players. If we don’t play then we don’t play.
Value your rugby club and make the time enjoy the spirit that was so evident today at Sunlight.
Here’s to a great season Mavs and here’s to Prenton next week .
Try scorers this week were as follows.

Andy Smith - 3
Del Alderson - 2
Gordon Rogers - 1
Eddie brown - 1
Ryan Williams - 1