U14's well beaten by a very strong Cheadle Hulme team

It’s been a long, long time since a lot of these boys were on the receiving end of such a comprehensive beating. For some of the senior players this will be the first time since they were about 8 years old, which is proof of how successful Mellor have been over the past few years. However the time had to come and it finally happened today. Cheadle Hulme’s U14 team are particularly strong this year and they are also physically bigger than most of the Mellor team. Their discipline was good and they had some very strong players going forward. Mellor just didn’t move the ball enough when they were in possession, they weren’t aggressive enough with the ground balls and they weren’t tactically disciplined in the way their coach wanted them to be.

That said their heads never went down. The under 12 players stepping up, Alex Chalmers and Joey Bissel battled really well. Drew Bickerton gave his all as usual but Mellor lacked the firepower to make any significant reply to the remorseless scoring of Cheadle Hulme.

The first quarter ended 0-3 to the visitors. Mellor only managed one goal in the second quarter via Drew, but that could only bring the score to 1-8. In the third Cheadle Hulme really took control and despite another solo effort from Drew it ended 2 – 11.

Finally in the fourth a little more self-belief came back into the team’s game. They started moving the ball quicker and making better use of possession. Tom Brady scored a trademark twisty-turny goal and Sam Griffiths scored a lovely solo effort. This energy and purpose had been lacking from the first three quarters of the game. It ended 4 – 17 but the boys demonstrated with the last part of the game that they are better than the score-line suggests.

It’s a shame to end the year on the back of such a defeat but this little team have actually played very well so far this season. There won’t be many games like this one and they should feel confident about a good cup run. Suggestions for 2017? More aggression with the ground balls, move the ball faster and start winning the face-offs or Austin will burst.

GOALS :

Drew 2 Tom 1 Sam 1

ASSISTS :

Drew 1 Ben 1

SAVES : 10

Man Of The Match – Will Macdonald for making 10 saves, good distribution and not giving up!