Mavericks 46 - Mossley Hill 7

Mossley Hill arrived at Vauxhall’s with a bulked up team from that previously faced by the Mavericks with some familiar and unfamiliar faces from previous outings. The Gaffer, confident in the excellent selections of both Skinny and the rest of the senior coaching team the previous Tuesday looked at the squad list and positively relishes the forthcoming battle.
New introductions to the Mavericks of Kel Friday, Andy Morse, and Dan Jenner offered strength in depth and the new starters of Charlie Smith and the increasingly impressive Dion showed the potential coming through the ranks. Some regulars coming back to the fore with Ryan Williams, Tom Redfearn, and Stocky all having very impressive run outs .
The warm and sunny afternoon, together with the near perfect playing pitch, apart from the red lines (still causing confusion), promised to bring an afternoon of fast and flowing rugby.
Kick off came and the first ten minutes were a bruising series of highly physical collisions between two committed forward pack. In rucks and mauls the Mavs never took a backward step with some huge impacts being provided by Stocky and Kell to keep the Mossley Hill pack guessing. The big Mossley Hill pack kept piling the pressure on and one one occasion early on, passed up a scoring opportunity due to a dropped pass in the back line.
The Mavs immediately turned defence into attack and scored their first try after about 20 minutes, with a second following shortly after . Tries this week come from Tom Redfearn (3) Dan Jenner, Andy Morse, Ryan Williams, Christian McIvor and Graham Keen. With Mossley Hill countering with one of their own.
Noticeable performances came this week from Tom Redfearn who led the opposition backs on a merry dance scoring three well taken tries. The youngster Dion continues to impress all who see him with Jamie Kimpton (Chairman of Rugby) saying “Well done yesterday mate . You have a few gems in the Mav's ?” and went on to say the performance was “very impressive” . With which I couldn’t agree more. This was the best best Maverick performance I have seen as a manger for as long as I can remember. It was simple rugby played at its very best. Strong physical performance never taking a backward step in contact which set up the platform to allow the skillful, rapid backs to cut holes through the Mossley Hill defence.
On the subject of the forward battle there were highly notable performances, everything from Pat Rowe’s epic box kick to clear our lines when under pressure, which moves us half the length of the pitch to the fabulous running of the ‘number 4K’ which resulted in Graham Keen’s excellent try under the posts. However our stand out forward performance and man of the match goes to Stocky this week who consistently made the hard yards and stopped opposition incursion with some huge hits. Running back ball and always taking three players out in every contact . When it looked like we were losing our footing in the pack it was Stocky doing what stocky does best that got us going forward to allow for the backs to run in tries. It was a close call as Kell Friday once again provided an influential and dominant shift in the front Row . Christian McIvor continues to impress as a winger, a fine try and a fabulous all round performance.
Overall an immense performance from ALL players and squad, thanks to Mike Potter for supporting the team. Once again it’s a privilege to do this on match days like these.
Final score of 46-5 to the Mavs. Onwards and upwards.

The Gaffer,

Semel A Mavericus, Semper A Mavericus