Thatto Heath 12 - 20 Mayfield

Photo: Aidy Gleeson Snr

Callum Marriott, Thatto Heath 12 - 20 Mayfield

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Mayfield claimed another two points at Thatto Heath's Crusader Park on Saturday in a game that was dictated by the weather rather than the players.

The driving rain made handling difficult at best and the team that made least mistakes was always going to win this one.

Mayfield started well with two tries on the scoreboard after just eight minutes played.

The first came after only three minutes when Dave Wood hacked a Sam Butterworth kick forward Liam Whalley took up the ball and showed great strength to force his way through three defenders to touchdown.

Mayfield extended the lead when Paul Brearley dropped Callum Marriott back on the inside, like Whalley before him Marriott was unstoppable. Butterworth converted.

Then came the rain with a deluge of almost biblical proportions. Both sides suffered with dropped ball aplenty. Along with the mistakes came a loss of discipline, again with both sides guilty of giving away senseless penalties through frustration mainly, which cost dearly.

After receiving their fourth consecutive penalty in the Mayfield twenty metre zone, Thatto took advantage of a break in the weather to move the ball sharply and catch the Mayfield side cold with a converted try by the posts.

That was the last score of the half but both sides kept trying, defence was great from both teams with Dave Wood again topping the Mayfield tackle count closely followed by Marriott, Gaz Ellison and Whalley.

Coach Matt Calland instilled in his team the need to adapt to the conditions and respect the possession a bit more during the second half and Mayfield did a better job of this than Thatto.

With Thatto receiving a team warning after giving away five penalties in the opening eight minutes, Brearley exploited the situation after the referee sin-binned the next Thatto offender and managed to set up the next score for Callum Marriott. Butterworth added the conversion.

It looked at this stage like Mayfield would run away with the game but Thatto dug deep and managed to score, going over from acting half back after a momentary lapse from the solid Mayfield defence.

Thatto then allowed a spell of indiscipline to ruin their chances of getting anything from the game with four players taking an enforced rest during the second half, two for foul play and two for referee abuse.

Mayfield continued to throw caution to the wind and moved the ball around. From one of these movements Butterworth threw a long ball out to Callum Marriott who showed another side to his game with a perfectly timed short ball to Calland who dived over to complete the scoring.

The stand out player and unanimous man-of-the-match, after a performance which was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch, was Callum Marriott.