Serious injury forces match abandonment

With the match interestingly poised at 10 – 5 to Keyworth and a wind that couldn’t make up its mind which direction it wanted to swirl in, a Mellish kick into the Keyworth 22 was beautifully gathered by Tom Martin at pace as he set off on a long arcing run. Outstripping the first Mellish defender, he made it to the halfway line before he was superbly tackled by the Mellish full-back. Unfortunately for Tom this resulted in the double break to his lower leg and the loud blast on the ref’s whistle ultimately signalled the end of the match.

Everyone at Keyworth Rugby Club wishes Tom the best for a successful operation to mend his leg on Monday and hope to see him back in harness as soon as possible. It was Tom’s first game in the full-back position and he’d been playing really well, particularly in defence, putting in a couple of cracking tackles. He was playing there due to several late cry-offs which resulted in Keyworth fielding a bare 15 players, necessitating a number of positional changes.

The rugby that was played had been a great contest by two teams who tried to do their best in what can only be described as gale force freezing winds. Kicking was a complete lottery, players didn’t know whether the ball would go 40m forward or 30m backward as happened to Mellish on one occasion, forcing them to defend a 5m scrum.

The windy conditions also made passing difficult and as a consequence there were a large number of scrums in the game due to knock-ons and lineout throws blown off course. Keyworth did fairly well at the set piece considering they once again had to rely on Jack Pitchfork to make the move into the front row, due to the aforementioned selection issues. Both sides did their best to play rugby and the match was played in an excellent spirit by 2 sides that mirrored each other in terms of profile – a mixture of old b*gg*rs and young guns.

Keyworth took a 3 point lead when Sam Tilaks slotted a penalty on 9 minutes after the Mellish skipper had infringed by entering a maul from the side as Keyworth drove deep into their 22. This was followed by more pressure by the home side who went further ahead on 20 minutes as a strong scrummage drive resulted in an alert Jack Starr pouncing on the ball as it went over the try line, for the simplest of touchdowns. From close in, Tilaks duly obliged with the extra points to give Keyworth a 10 point lead.

This stung Mellish into action and they pressured the Keyworth defence on several occasions before their hooker picked and drove over from a ruck near the Keyworth line to cut the deficit by half. That was the final scoring action of the first period and due to the injury, only 7 minutes of the second half were played. Due to the 50 minute wait for an ambulance, it was not possible for any further play to take place.
Man of the match for Keyworth was adjudged to be Zander Wiles who played his best game of the season and rumour has it, actually made several tackles, a couple of runs and a useful clearance kick to boot.

Other performances of note were Jon Cooper who came within one more penalty of a yellow card for persistent technical infringement by not rolling away at the tackle or playing the ball in the ruck. In the loose and with ball in hand, he played very well and relished his return to the back row. Fellow flanker, Luke Benson, again tackled like a demon and every one, low, which several other players need to take note of.

Scotty was beamed up on numerous occasions at the front of the line and won all of his and plenty of theirs as well. Felix, commuting only from Nottingham this week, had another solid performance in the tight and the loose. The consistent James Maddock caused problems for his opposite number in the front row and birthday boy, captain Keith Scott, soldiered on bravely despite carrying a leg injury for most of the match. JP Disney did very well at outside half, considering the difficult conditions and made some strong runs and good offloads. Tsangy and Doug Martin didn’t get much chance to show off their running skills and Mark King made good yards but too often into heavy traffic.

It’s hard to say whether Keyworth would have hung on to win had the game played its full course. In many areas they were the superior force, particularly set pieces but as the game wore on, their lack of a bench was likely to hamper them, whilst the visitors had a couple of pairs of fresh legs to call upon. How the matter is resolved will be up to the ingenuity of the club fixture secretaries and possibly the rulings of the Pennant League administrators. Certainly both teams are happy to play the match again in order to get a result.

An unfortunate end to an excellently played contest between two evenly matched sides.