After the previous week's postponement, Stockport hoped for better weather as they made the short journey over to Heaton Moor RUFC to take on Manchester Medics 1st XV who use this ground for their home games. Having faced the same opponents only 2 weeks ago, Stockport were keen to take some revenge and hopefully be on the right end of the score line. The 3's welcomed back Jack Purves for his first game of the season whilst also handing a senior rugby debut to Harvey Jones at full back and a first start of the season for their latest overseas import, centre Elvis Cridlington. Jenkin Whittaker and Louis Rubin joined veteran prop Jez Taylor on the bench, meaning we were only using our own players should we need to?????? Cridlington was fashionably late however his excuse was he was collecting our coach!! Do professional rugby players not own their own cars???

Stockport started as they usually seem to do now, by giving away a penalty for a high shot and soon they were trapped in their 22 fighting to keep the Medics out. Despite a heroic effort to defend their line, the away team were stretched too wide which saw the Medics in the corner for the first score of the afternoon with an unconverted try. Stockport weren't for letting up and the forwards were clearly up for the fight, with hooker Tyron Walker winning penalties with turnovers which fly half Myles Mason used his boot to cause further damage to the Medics territory. Dominant in the line out and especially the scrum, Stockport laid siege to the Medics line and it was long before prop Elliott Lee managed to force his way over for an equalising score. Despite being in the ascendency, Stockport were then reduced to 14 men as centre Keith Warhurst collected his first yellow of the season for what was explained as a dangerous high tackle, with the shoulder connecting with the throat of the player made worse by the fact that the offending player took a run up into the tackle. Now there are 3 interesting things here that took place, the first of which was that this was a 2-man tackle involving Cridlington who was actually the higher of the 2 tackling players. Secondly, (and I'm no doctor) but I'm almost certain that your throat is not located near your belly button which is where I connected and thirdly, when the tackled player shrugs his shoulders and says, "what was that for" I'm beginning to think it may not have been high at all???? Despite all of this, Warhurst trudged off for his 10 minute rest however the Stockport side managed to play those 10 minutes with no change to the score line, but with the most unbelievable bit of skill ever seen on a rugby pitch (shame it was a football move). With the Medics punting to touch, the ball seemed destined to go out up until the point that scrum half Toby Piatt, who was off the pitch leapt like a salmon to perform a Ronaldo-esque mid-air bicycle kick sending the ball back into the midfield and into the grateful hands of Mason. Such a piece of skill should surely be rewarded but alas not, and it was a line out to the Medics. Again the forwards asserted their dominance with the engine room of Mel (John Eales) McCaughey and Chris Dodd (or Meloddy as they prefer) rampant, as though both had a point to prove after previous Veo indiscretions. There was even a rare sighting of some back bending into tackles, something which we have never seen before but hope it will continue. Another playing well and scoring the next try was No.8 Dom Waterhouse, who controlled the ball beautifully at the back of a scrum and grounded it for a score converted by McCaughey. Now SOME would say that Waterhouse MAY have been putting a little bit of extra effort in due to a certain American being stood on the touchline, or some would say that it was him trying to justify the god awful boots he was wearing (circa Fifa World Cup Korea 2002 according to boot nerd Dodd) but either way, the forwards had pushed us into a 12-5 lead which is how the score remained up to the half time whistle.

The half time talk from Sale and England prop Bevan Rodd was that we needed to drive up into the heart of the Medics using our obvious advantage of the pack, whilst keeping our cool and not giving away silly penalties or throwing silly offloads. You'd think by now that whilst we all listen to him and agree, as soon the whistle goes its back to be headless chickens however despite all of this, the lead remained in tact largely due to an unbelievable try saving tackle from Jones whilst when the Medics did breach the line, they found wing Max 'Thinning' Bailey in place underneath the ball to prevent the score. It was now time to make substitutions at which point Rodd was explaining to young Jenkin Whittaker exactly what he wanted him to do, which was to tackle. He explained how he needed to go low etc at which Whittaker responded about it all being about technique not size. He then even pointed out he could take Rodd out no problem before walking away and suddenly realising that we were all calling him Bevan, as in Bevan Rodd, as in Sale and England international prop Bevan Rodd. Oh dear Jenkin.

Despite having ball and opportunities, every Stockport attack led to a mistake or a penalty and courtesy of a monster tackle from prop Jack Booth the Medics had now lost a prop so it was uncontested scrums. Fortunately the Medics were able to call on a number of Heaton Moor players to come over from the adjacent game and play for them so no harm done and it was still 15-a-side!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Medics eventually managed to outnumber Stockport and it was now 12-12 with all to play for, however the visitors then lost totemic skipper McCaughey with an eye injury (that will need lots of sympathy from Rebecca) and then also conceded a 3rd Medics try pushing them into a 17-12 lead. With the light fading, Stockport tried their best however it wasn't meant to be and a penalty reversal was the last action of the game with the Medics again taking the spoils!

A number of honourable mentions today including Harvey Jones on senior debut as well as the forwards as a whole, especially Meloddy. Clearly they need publicly abusing more often if it produces performances like that? However it was left to the Medics to select our MOTM and talk about a backhanded compliment from their skipper as he announced, "your 10 was brilliant and ran the game for you.......which wasn't bad considering his age!!!!" Step forward MOTM Myles Mason.

Now onto DOTD and there are a number of contenders. Usually a yellow means straight DOTD however in my defence, it was complete and utter bollocks!! Telling a Sale and England international you would smash him was probably not the best course of action and passing to no one doesn't usually help the attack does it Dominic however, as voted for by the Medics this week's DOTD was our very own Ronaldinho, Toby Piatt.