1st XV Report: Minety go down fighting
On Saturday Minety travelled to Melksham, injures forcing coach James Irving to don his boots as part of makeshift Minety back line. However, Minety stepped up and looked the more likely to score in opening exchanges. On 25 mins Minety took advantage of a Melksham yellow card to take a scrum against the head allowing number eight Andrew Hibbard to power over, stand in kicker Dave Cooke falling fractionally short with the long-range conversation.
Melksham hit back immediately with a freak score. A Minety knock on from the restart hitting the head of the Melksham winger, bouncing behind the Minety defence and sitting up nicely for a score in the corner.
A further score from Melksham on the stroke of half time gave them a 12-5 lead at the interval.
The second half was evenly contested throughout but a half peppered with injuries. Minety losing Ben Scott and Mark Glew.
On 60 minutes Melksham stretched their lead to 17-5 breaking out from their own 22m to score in the corner. A further penalty took it to 20-5 in the last minutes of normal time.
Minety held on through some 15 minutes of added time to deny Melksham a try bonus and keep the final score at Melksham 20 Minety 5.
Team: Colin French, Tom Claxton, Andy Darrall, Ben Scott, Matt Stone, Kieran Tillotson, Jay Thompson, Andrew Hibbard, Mark Glew, Ben Langridge, James Irving, Duncan Simpson, Dave Cooke, Rob Hinwood, Chris Rule. Replacements: Ben Collins, James Stuart, Matt Chisholm.
Match report: Cliff Garland