Occipital plates and assemblies combining occipital plates with one of several types of spinal rods or cervical plates in a procedure to fuse a portion of a skull to a portion of a spine including an occipital plate with mesh portions. The mesh portions may be used to augment the bone screws delivered via through holes in the occipital plate. The mesh portions may be sized so that the gaps in the mesh were bigger than the outer diameter of the bone screw but smaller than the head of the screw so that bone screws could be delivered through the mesh to bind the mesh to the skull.
