Convincing win over strugglers Spalding

After last week’s disappointing and difficult game at Ashbourne, the squad were looking forward to this rearranged game against Spalding to put together a much improved performance. The squad saw a couple of changes. James Young started at scrumhalf with Tom Morton switching to the bench. Tom Wright moved to the front row and Rory Cookman came onto the bench alongside Morton and Tom Stokes.
From the kick off Matlock looked very sharp with ball in hand and following a couple of missed early opportunities they scored the first of twelve excellent team tries on ten minutes when captain Tim Taylor scored in the corner off a rehearsed line out move. With the visitors having a difficult season and sitting adrift at the bottom of the league Matlock made the most of the space created by quick ball at the breakdown and their inter-passing between forwards and backs exposed the weaknesses in the visitors defence. The finishing however could have been better and it was another ten minutes before the second try came. From midfield Dan Hooton made a strong carry hitting up the middle, the ball was quickly recycled with James Fairclough coming round on the loop to take the scoring pass from Alex Powell. The conversion attempt was wide 10-0. This seemed to spark something of a try fest as four minutes later Fairclough went over for his second following a good counter led by Alex Powell running back a poor clearance kick from Spalding who were under extreme pressure on their own line. Fairclough added the extras 17-0. Before half time further tries were added by Luke Howard and Fairclough again completing his hat-trick before the half time whistle came with Matlock leading 31-0.
The second half kicked off and there was no respite for the visitors with Luke Howard scoring two quick tries in a matter of minutes taking the score to 45-0. The situation got worse were the visitors with a yellow card on 55 minutes and Matlock kicked to the 22 for an attacking line. Matlock’s attack broke down due to a knock on and Spalding’s luck continued to desert them as they accidentally kicked the ball out of the side of the scrum where Tom Cruttenden was quickest to react picking up the loose ball and powering over near the posts for a converted try 52-0. Matlock continued to play some entertaining rugby and created a fine score which began in their own 22. Alex Powell broke away down the wing before feeding Mike Allen who was tackled and the ball turned over. Spalding then spilled the ball in the tackle themselves and Rory Cookman gathered it quickly and passed to John Statham who looked to be away before a superb tap tackle fetched him down. The respite for Spalding was short lived as the ball was quickly recycled for Luke Howard to cross for fourth try of the match, 57-0. The interchanges from the bench were used wisely with Tom Stokes having a good run out after his debut last week lasted just 60 seconds.
Matlock continued to show little mercy and scored further tries through Fairclough, Ben Neville and Tom Morton with the latter coming from a driving maul. Final score 74-0.

A resounding victory against a brave and battling side with 12 tries and 7 conversions and a great performance from the entire match day squad. Congratulations to Ben Neville on his 200th first team appearance and to Ashley Statham, the only player to have played every game so far this season, on his 100th first team appearance.

Team: Wright T, Jackson C, Staham A, Atkinson C, Taylor T, Cruttenden T, Willingham-Statham J, Wright S, Young J, Fairclough J, Howard, L, Neville B, Hooton D, Allen M, Powell A
Bench: Stokes T, Cookman R, Morton T

The next game on 4th March is at home against Coalville, 3.00pm kick off. The game will be preceded by a VP’s lunch so a large partisan but well behaved crowd is expected.