Mel Hobbs: Its all been YOUR fault!

I guess everyone knows about Mel's pivotal role in getting all this off the ground. So much of it was down to her determination to play - a determination never frustrated despite, first, the sudden collapse of the Scorpions girls team based at Datchworth (only weeks after Mel had gone along to a training session) and then Hitchin's refusal to run the North Herts girls tag team for Youth Games.

Mel was going to play one way or another, even if we had to build a team just for her. Which is what we did. Which is why you now spend your winter Sundays and Thursday evenings covered in mud and interesting bruises - its entirely Mel's fault!

She was there from the start - as naive and green as the rest of us. Who can forget, for example, her attempts to play with her glasses on - and against Welwyn too!?

Mel was a regular player for the first two or three season, generally at centre, without perhaps making a huge impact. She picked up awards - Most Improved Player in 2006/7, for example - and was in the Herts 7s finalists in 2005 - but its interesting that there are not that may photos of Mel in action in the early years.

There may have been other pressures, but I think I'm right in saying that Mel began to feel (rightly or wrongly) that she didn't have a set place in the team, and began to drift away so that she never appeared for us from the middle of the 2007/8 season.

But that all changed this season. Persuaded to come back by new captain Nikki, Mel also leapt at the chance to take on a new role (and one that some of us had always thought she might do). 

After four years with Katie as scrum half the team suddenly needed a replacement. Mel stepped forward, and immediately began to play as if born to the role.

Her confidence did not so much as bloom as explode. She had never been a bad player - indeed she was always far better than she herself would ever accept - but now she was everywhere on the field. 

Opposing scrum halves (regardless of size!) had to move pretty smartly to stand any chance of getting the ball away, while anyone else who came too close to Mel would find themselves in trouble.

But perhaps it was when she got the ball in her hands that Mel became a revalation. Incredable speed, lightning change of direction, huge strength. A sniff of a gap and she was gone...

And now she is gone - well, from playing for the U18s anyway. Because it seems that Mel will be back next season - with Carla - as coaches for the U15s (and, if they are lacking in numbers, maybe as a player too - no-one would notice!). It promises to be an awesome coaching team - between them they have played just about every position on the field. U18s loss this season will definately be the U15s gain. Go Mel!