Match reports for Saturday 15th
January 2000
Taken from the Derby Evening Telegraph 18/01/00
Belper 1st XV 11pts Melbourne 1st XV 13pts
Melbourne celebrated a double over Belper after triumphing
in this Notts, Lincs & Derbys One match.
The sides met in the Derbyshire Cup earlier this season when Melbourne won 10 - 6 and they
triumphed again against a Belper side six places above them in the league.
Belper struggled to get going and debutante Anthony England was never given the chance to
show what he could do on the wing, while fly half Steve Dymond made mistakes.
He scored a try and kicked two penalties but also missed the conversion and four other
penalty attempts.
Andy Watts opened the scoring for Melbourne with an unconverted try. James Thorburn kicked
a penalty and converted his own try to give the home side a 13 - 6 half time advantage.
Belper battled in vain after the interval and could only muster Dymond's try in response.
Match reports for Saturday 15th
January 2000
Taken from the Belper News 18/01/00
Belper 1st XV 11pts Melbourne 1st XV 13pts
This was not a good result for Belper against a side well
below them in the league.
Try as they might, Belper found it impossible to really get going, obviously a tribute to
the hosts who prevented them playing their normal expansive game.
Debutante Anthony England made no mistakes on the wing but did not have the opportunity to
show his powerhouse running.
Although fly-half Steve Dymond scored a try and kicked two penalties, even he could not
get it right, missing the conversion and four other kickable penalties.
The longer the game went on the worse it got for Belper, as they became increasingly
frustrated and realised that the game was slipping away from them, to follow defeat by
Melbourne in the cup just before Christmas.
Belper 2nd XV 8 Melbourne 2nd XV 17pts
Injury and holidays saw the second team weakened to the
extent that they started one man short and had to wait to come up to full strength.
Belper conceded an early try, but the played some good rugby with the back row of John
Tatham, Ross Moore and Stan Tomlinson everywhere, causing the visiting forwards quite a
few problems in the loose.
This meant that scrum-half Geoff Hornby was able to set up the backs for frequent runs and
Craig Tennick and man of the match Mike Beavis went close to scoring on a number of
occasions.
Full-back Dave Taylor also joined the line to good effect, but Melbourne came back from
pressure and a quick change of direction saw them run in a second try.
In the second half Belper attacked furiously, up the slope, and a mighty surge forward
from Chris Smith, Bob Boyd, Shaun Thompson and Ross Moore gained possession for Geoff
Hornby to crash over in the corner.
Hornby also kicked a penalty, but another try was also conceded, and converted, in a
hard-fought game in which the final score was just about reflected the match.
Belper 3rd XV 10pts Melbourne 3nd XV 36pts
This was a closer game than the final score suggests,
with Melbourne only leading by seven points until the last quarter of the game,
when they scored an interception try and Belper began to take chances to catch
up and in the quest for points conceded too much possession.
A younger Melbourne side were often quicker to the breakdown than Belper, although
Haydn John had a tremendous game often breaking up the visitors attacks almost
on his own, and ferreting away to provide a deal of second phase ball.
Simon Blount went close to scoring from lineouts on three separate occasions,
whilst man of the match Frank Toman, besides puling off some tremendous tackles
in defence, also forced his way into the line to add guile to the attack.
Quickly won ball by Haydn John set up the wily Jim Kenning for the first try.
Whilst good movement and team play gave Simon Teager possession just outside
the 22 and after bumping of his first tackler, he turned on the power to race
in for the second try.