Rochdale, fielding a very small/young team, competed and scrapped, and whilst the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion, they still tested the Mellor boys.

Knowing the inevitable one sided nature of the game, the boys were tasked with scoring goals the right way. None of this steaming through and burying a shot without passing! Encouragingly the vast majority of our goals were team goals.

When a team goes 5 goals ahead in a scoreline, the officials introduce free clears (uncontested draws), great for the team losing, but rubbish for the team winning! Our last two games have seen our scorelines disturbed by free clears.

However, we get an opportunity to work on our defensive shape. At times this morning it was good, at times it was poor.

The boys handling skills weren't the best and that also disrupted the way we played. That leads to lots of scrappy ground ball contests, that then leads to penalties and injuries.

So, it was a dominant scoreline, but it was a competitive match and more experience for our newer, younger players. 9 different goal scorers too.

Goalscorers: Hugo x4; Louis x3; James x2; Freddie B x2; Freddie Mc x1; Freddie P x1; Jasper x1; Henry x1; Hayden x1