Lacklustre Tamworth Lose Third In A Row

Tamworth suffered their third defeat in a row at the hands of Melbourne on Saturday in a game littered with some overly zealous officiating this along with a playing surface that could only be described as heavy combined to snuff out any chance of exciting flowing rugby.
Melbourne opened the strongest and pinned Tamworth back in their own half with the visitor’s lack of a kicking option soon becoming evident as they struggled to exit to relieve pressure.
This pressure soon converted into points when the powerful Melbourne pack mauled the ball over the line from a five metre lineout. 5-0
An injury to loose head Carter Jones forced Tamworth into an early change in the front row with Callum Bayliss entering the fray.
Within three minutes Melbourne’s lead was doubled when they moved the ball wide finding Tamworth short on numbers in defence the winger scoring too easily in the corner. 10-0
Then followed the beginning of the referees card fest with a player from both sides seeing yellow for what was nothing more than a bit of pushing and shoving that you see numerous times in any match but never escalate past that.
Tamworth’s poor first half got worse when they found themselves three tries down after only 25 minutes when two or three missed tackles allowed the Melbourne centre to score a try that the normally excellent Tamworth defence would have snuffed out on a different day. 15-0
Melbourne were reduced to thirteen before the break as the centre was shown a yellow as he was harshly adjudged to have deliberately knocked the ball on.
Tamworth started the second period much brighter and seemed to have closed the deficit when Roman Mustchin’s outstretched arm downed the ball clearly over the line only for an unsighted referee to wipe off the score for an apparent knock on and this clearly wasn’t going to be Tamworth’s day.
The visitor’s did finally get some points on the board when Liam McGreevy again appeared to have crossed the whitewash only again for the referee’s arm to remain firmly by his side. The ball was recycled and scrum half Xavier Hill dived over finally raising the officials arm to signal the try. Jack Dalton kicked a beauty from a tight angle to add the extra two points 15-7
The game then was effectively ended as a spectacle as the man in the middle went about filling his notebook with two red cards for Melbourne and one for Tamworth with another couple of yellows thrown in for good measure making the match stats look like this was a nasty bad tempered game which it really wasn’t and although the official is not responsible for Tamworth’s lacklustre first half performance and on the day Melbourne were good value for their win this was a game defined by the performance of one man.
Final Score
Melbourne 15
Tamworth 7