Nothing spectacular but a win seals Pennant 2 title

Delighted to welcome back Glenn Sutton from another tour of Afgan and had a taster of what we have missed this season as Glenn collected a kick in the 2nd half, broke from inside his own 10m, dodged and broke a couple of tackles before offloading to Andy Birznieks on the 22 to who ran in to get the vital try and take us on the way to an away win.

Injuries continued to give opportunity for Nick Green in the centre, Chris Garrod having his 1st outing this season at 9 and Gareth McGahan starting in the 2nd row. Playing into the wind, Bingham got a quick lesson in covering as from the Bingham KO, the Mellish 10 put in a huge clearance kick from his 22 almost all the way to the Bingham Line. Pressure relieved but a penalty shortly after gives Mellish a 3 pt lead.

Tough going with the wind and a dangerous winger to contend with and on 20 minutes Bingham get into the Mellish 22 recycle the ball after a line out; Lee Stokoe finds himself as 1st receiver, runs straight and pops the ball to Nick Green and with work still to do strides over to score; converted by Anthony Thomas.

A quick penalty taken onto Tom Didsbury feeding Anthony Thomas and with an Overlap begging the ball is taken back towards the forwards and the ball lost allowing Mellish to clear. Running the ball back Bingham win a penalty which is pushed just wide but Tom Didsbury off after picking up a couple of knocks. Bingham apply more pressure and with a penalty advantage, Anthony Thomas slots a drop goal to get us a great return playing into the elements. However this is immediately given up conceding a try after a mixup in defence and with the conversion Half time comes at 10 – 10.

Mellish start the 2nd half brightly and create a 5 on 2 overlap releasing the winger but great tackling as we have come to expect from Will North and support from Anthony Thomas saves the situation. Even when Mellish suffer a yellow card, Bingham find it difficult to get any cohesion going and a 2nd penalty gets pushed wide.

Mellish then make the fatal error to kick the ball to Glenn Sutton in space and he quickly gets into his stride, getting past defenders until he feeds Andy Birznieks to run in the last 22 metres. Converted close to the touch to give Bingham the lead 10 – 17 and hopefully the spurr to kick on.

Bingham make several changes getting all subs on and to their great credit, Mellish run at every opportunity given the wind and probably thinking Glenn will just unpick the defence again and get some dominance in the scrum with Bingham losing a couple against the head.

Whilst keeping play in the Mellish half, Bingham just could not get going and tensions were eased with 10 minutes to go when Jonathan picks from a scrum and feeds brother Anthony who scores in the corner 10 – 22. Full time comes with no further score and little improvement from Bingham but a lot of credit to Mellish who had come into the game on the back of some good results putting in a battling performance and denying a bonus point win for Bingham.

However, the win being more than enough to guarantee the Pennant 2 league title with 18 wins and only 2 losses. Results have more than exceeded our expectations this season after just 1 year playing up a league and coming across some good 2nd & 3rd teams.

As we go to print, we are not aware of other club results in the league but our position is uncatchable with the stats showing

Played 20, won 18, lost 2 – points for 556, points against 190