Mayfield under 14s travelled to st Helen's on Sunday to take on Portico Vine in the first round of the NW counties cup and with a lengthy injury list and two late cry offs, Mayfield were down to 12 men. They started strongly with some ferocious defence especially from cameron connolly which led to Mayfield scoring through Lewis Butterworth under the posts. Portico replied with 3 soft tries by the standards Mayfield had set in previous weeks but after a flowing move from right to left Joe Schofield scored in the corner with a touchline conversion from Zac Baker making the score more respectable at half time. After some strong words from coach Dean Hartley at the break there seemed to be an immediate effect as Schofield scored an excellent individual try but as in previous weeks, poor one on one tackling allowed Portico to score twice to take the lead but the mercurial Connolly stepped his way to the line for Baker to convert and it was déjà vue as Connolly scored an almost identical try leaving four defenders in his wake for Baker to convert again. With minutes remaining on the clock Ryan McCaw took the ball upfield and a quick play the ball saw owen thompson break just to be pulled down short of the line. On the last tackle, Connolly put up a crossfield kick which Schofield collected to complete his hat trick and put the game out of reach. Unfortunately, from the kick off, Mayfield knocked on and gifted Portico a consolation try and goal the final score 30 - 36
Top tackler was Lewis Butterworth
Coaches award went to Joe Schofield
And Man of the Match went to Cameron Connolly