Having beaten Mellor A the previous week 16-8 away at Mellor, it's safe to say we were confident going in to our cup game on Saturday. The only downside was the fact that the only playable field at Styal had areas of our field that resembled porridge, play lacrosse they said, the fastest game on two feet they said....until played on a field of porridge. To say the the playing surface was challenging is an understatement, there were moments that it felt like watching cartoon characters sliding on an oil slick.
Mellor A actually seemed to turn up with a stronger team than the week before but we were unfazed by who they had and more focused on ourselves. The final score was 14-1, to say we managed to score 14 goals on a field as muddy as it was this past weekend is a testament to the workhorse ethic of our midfield unit and the clinical finishing of our attack. Defensively this was one of our finest team performances which saw real cohesion with excellent communication and highly organized slide packages shutting down Mellor to the point where their attack produced less than six shots on target, not a busy day for Matt "Monkey" Goddard between the pipes. Tough to pick an MVP this week but straight defenseman Finn Sykes had his strongest game yet for the club and even managed to tally a goal on the score sheet for the first time this season. Louis Andrews was another player who had a standout game with 3 goals out of the midfield, it could have been 4 but the ball crossed the line after the final whistle of the game during a break in unsettled play.
Sadly this Saturday saw our faceoff specialist, George Widdowson, pop out his shoulder. George has been a dominant force this season and will be sadly missed for the upcoming fixtures. We wish him a speedy and heathy recovery.
