Mansfield Women bounce back to crush local rivals Mellish

With last week’s defeat to league leaders Sheffield Tigers still fresh in the memory, Mansfield had a quick opportunity to banish that ghost and solidify what has been a positive and successful season.

That they did with an impressive show of power and pace to register another high score against a spirited and resilient Mellish team.

This fixture has provided some excellent games over the last few seasons and this was no different.

Despite the scoreline, the home team spent periods of the second half defending and struggling to make field position.

But for a few handling mistakes, the visitors could easily have upped their own score. However, Mansfield were more clinical in both attack and defence and claimed the victory

Head coach Dave Woodcock said: ‘I thought it was a good overall performance today. We went looking for the edges and really tested their defence.”

As has been the case this season, Mansfield started brightly and managed to open up their scoring within the first 10 minutes.

A characteristically bulldozing drive from Amy Marshall saw her crash through the opponents’ defence and put her team in the lead. The conversion was missed.

The first half saw a steady progression of scores as the home team built their tally with regularity.

They spun the ball wide in order to try and exploit the space available and kept it close with probing runs from around the ruck.

To their credit, Mellish’s defence was strong, and it was when Mansfield started to stretch the width of the game and put multiple phases together that the cracks started to appear.

A succession of penalties saw the home team able to carve out some territory, mostly through taking quick tap-and-goes and keeping the visitors moving.

It was from one of these quick taps that Cat Chambers latched on to the ball and outsprinted the opposition to register the first of what would become a brace for her, adding to an already impressive try tally this season – again the conversion was missed.

Four more tries from Millie Hemsley, Chambers, Pippa Wooley and Corah rounded off an impressive first half, already securing the try bonus point.

Laina Corah and Wooley conversions making a half-time tally of 34.

But some sustained possession of their own, and a devastatingly powerful scrum, saw the visitors were able to register their first score of the game and a missed conversion saw the half-time score read 34-5.

While Mansfield did add to their tally in the second half, they found it harder than the first. The visitors enjoyed large bouts of possession while Mansfield had to defend well.

Mellish did manage to add another converted try to their tally.

When the home team did gather possession and were able to put phases together, they did use it well and Lucy Payne barrelled through the defence to add her name to the scoresheet.

She was followed by pace as Marie-Anne Battersby, benefitting from a stolen line out, showed a clean pair of heels and raced 60m to keep the scoreboard moving.

A cohesive team score came next as Ffion Roberts triumphantly emerged from the bottom of a pile of bodies after multiple phases.

A final flourish of flair, fluidity and finesse finished off what had been a formidable display as Hannah Brereton divided the defence, dashing the remaining 40 metres to draw the scores to a close with Corah converting both Battersby and Brereton’s tries.

This was a well-gelled performance by Mansfield, akin to what we’ve seen previously this season.

While they will no doubt be disappointed that they couldn’t go unbeaten at home in the league for the whole season, Sheffield Tigers last week being their only hiccup, there should be immense pride in the squad as this final home game brought to an end an impressive run of victories.