It’s almost a win

By Gavin Staindl
IT is not a win, but Miners coach Mel Martin is taking many positives out of his team’s 31-18 loss to the Warriors.
For the first time this season the Miners were able to click offensively and after not managing a score in three games the inconsistent but explosive offensive unit strung together 18 points within a half of football.
The doubts for Martin crept in on Friday when he received a call from the gridiron academy, OzPunt informing him that NFL hopeful Shannon Stowers pulled out of Sunday’s cameo match for fear of injury.
Martin, who admitted it “would have been nice to have Stowers playing” then could only watch as the Miners progressed down the field in their first drive only to have running back Scott Sunderland fumble and lose the ball yards away from the end zone.
On the ensuing drive quarterback Andrew Nixon led his team to the 25-yard mark before throwing an interception to kill off their second productive drive.
By the half the Miners were down 12-0 and when the Warriors scored in their first drive of the second half Martin feared the worst for his side.
But as so often is the case in gridiron, the quarterback can inspire or deflate a side with his performance and on the weekend Nixon stirred a remarkable comeback.
“He was the catalyst,” Martin said of his young quarterback.
“He is still coming to terms with his responsibility but he lifted. In previous weeks he would get down on himself and get down on the team when things weren’t going right but this week he picked himself up in the second half,” Martin said.
The impressive Nixon then got things going on offense.
In the Miners’ first possession of the second half they scored.
The Warriors then added another touchdown to their score but the Miners dug in and produced two touchdowns in a minute largely due to a Sam Wilson interception.
All of a sudden, the running game that never had much credence in the Martin playbook began to shine.
Sunderland ran for 90 yards while returning running back Andrew Jarvis ran two large gains for a total of 30 yards.
The threat of the run caused the Warriors defence to place more emphasis on getting men around the line of scrimmage.
This in turn opened up the field for the passing game that Nixon was able to utilise.
Receivers Rick Brown and Sam Walker combined for 150 yards including multiple receptions for over 30 yards.
“We have the ability to play that well. We’re certainly an explosive team but we have a smallish offensive line which means the run is not that effective. But they gave it their all on Sunday,” Martin said.
Whether Martin will continue to use the run as much as he did on Sunday will depend on whether the offensive linesmen can back up their strong performance.
“If the offensive line can perform any where near the way they did on Sunday then we’ll look and running the ball more,” Martin said.
“But it is certainly an improvement… and I’m looking forward to taking the stuff we learned on Sunday into next week’s game against the Buccaneers.”