Rally comes too late for Mayfield
MAYFIELD suffered a shock home defeat at the hands of bottom side Myton Warriors, who belied their lowly status with a show of defence pluck at Mayfield Sports Centre.
The first two minutes of this game summed up how the afternoon would go for Mayfield as Lewis Butterworth made a forty metre break – only for the move to be snuffed out by the enthusiastic Myton defence.
Mayfield lost possession then gave away a penalty on the first tackle allowing Myton to progress from their own ten metres to the Mayfield ten.
Strong tackling saw them regain possession and go over for a converted try 0-6.
They were unlucky not to extend their lead after a full length dash saw their centre lose the ball over the line. Mayfield attempted to bring the ball away but again gave it away on the first tackle, Myton moved the ball quickly and managed to squeeze over in the corner, 0-10.
Mayfield looked completely shocked and when the restart went out on the full, this just compounded their woes.
Myton never looked like a bottom of the league side and threw the ball about with confidence, something Mayfield sadly lacked on the day.
Switching the attack to the opposite corner caught the scrambling home defence out and Myton worked another score, 0-14.
Mayfield attempted to rally with Fowden, Marriott and Brearley spearheading the assault but they again lost the ball on the first while on the Myton line and then gave away further metres after being penalised for mouthing off to the official.
This once again gave the opposition the position to work from and they were soon going over for their fourth try, 0-18.
With Biggins, Lewis Sheridan and Hargreaves now on the field the home side at last began to look like a rugby team and direct rugby from Gleeson and Marriott enabled Sheridan to turn the ball back inside to Biggins who crashed over for their first try converted by Sheridan, 6-18.
Mayfield began the second half with a bit more guile and introduced a degree of structure coupled with a bit more stiffness in defence.
They showed beyond doubt that they still have what it takes when it comes to playing rugby but they need to start applying this for eighty minutes of each game. Lewis Sheridan showed this as he went over to narrow the score 12-18.
The crowd sensed that a comeback was on the cards and Mayfield looked as though they might do it.
Both sides were making mistakes and cancelled each other out trading tries to make the score 18-22 with less than ten minutes left another Mayfield penalty saw Myton opt to take the two points on offer, 18-22.
That completed the scoring and saw Mayfield miss their chance to start climbing away from the danger zone. Mark Biggins was awarded the MOM for a non stop block busting performance.