Suddenly shopping with the missus or doing some gardening looks like a good way of spending a saturday afternoon rather than watching the Old Yards falling apart in front of your very eyes. In a season that had so much to offer lets hope we can turn things round sooner rather than later.
The first team played at Shipston in the Senior Vase competition. 21 points to 5 down at half-time with Ben Honey scoring our solitary points the second half was littered with unsavoury incidents forcing the referee to finish the game early. Oh well the only way is up but how long will it take? Come on boys next saturday will do nicely when we play our first home league match of the season.
As part of my sentence I watched the Development team play at home to Wednesbury 2nds. We opened up a 7-0 lead straight from the kick-off. The ball was won and moved right at real pace with Guy Smith finishing the job. Shortly after that Guy picked up from the base of a ruck and sprinted 30 meters for his second try. The prospect of buying a jug resulted in him spending the remainder of the game unloading or passing whenever he got possession. Great game Guy! For the rest of the game our youngsters becme a little mixed up with training as touch rugby became the order of the day as our method of defence. Unfortunately the plodders from the Black Country didn,t bother to stop or pass when gently caressed by Yardleian fingertips, they just carried on running and scored. Not to worry it was a nice sunny afternoon and Chris Watts admired the enthusiasm of our young players although he wouldn't have tolerated such poor tackling in his days!
The wheels came off for our 3rds/vets/vandals. The skipper, although gutted, will provide his own report.
Well guys, that was a long old afternoon of not so fun in the sun.
In fairness Old Halesonians will probably be the hardest test we will face this season, their Ones plying their trade two divisions above us, and whilst we'd expected a hard game I'd still hoped we would not suffer a mauling like that at any point in the season let alone against them.
Their guys on the whole were probably twenty years younger than the majority of us, and their fitness told all over the park. For my part I would like to apologise as my leadership went AWOL in preference to drawing breath in the most part, and I felt completely knackered after thirty minutes, something I aim to address.
Obviously the other thing that didn't help was the luck of the bounce as far as the refereeing went.
Ok enough of the excuses, with five changes from last week we started brightly albeit fortuitously with a kick and chase with Dave Hargreaves going over for his first try in competitive rugby and for the club in the first couple of minutes of the game. Remember always head to the posts if you can! On another day a conversion and subsequent penalty could have seen us 10-0 up as we dominated the opening exchanges and first fifteen minutes but sadly it was not to be.
Once in their rythym however, Hales scored frequently & freely throughout the game, with their ex Woodrush fly half directing operations..... he said we didn't ring him!
BUT we never gave up and made the tackles whenever they came in range. Losing both Cedric & Nick in the first half didn't help our cause, with Hales bringing on a total of six substitutions, and still having a couple left over.
Couple of mentions our front row of guest tighthead Bill Hendon, Mark & Rick who Bill tells me had their front row in bother throughout the game with lots of uses of the dark arts resulting with their hooker popping up more like toaster on more than one occasion.
A creditable debut for Stuart Adams on the wing at the ripe old age of 17; Stuart on more than one occasion was targeted by kick & chases throughout the game and he not only caught them he stood his ground with clusters of Hales players hanging on, and for that he was our man of the match.
Also a mention for Shannon's son Callum who came on in the second half and had a sound 40 under pressure at scrum half replacing Dewi Sidwell.
Anyway one to forget, and looking on the bright side we could have been Manchester who shipped an incredible 145 points against Blaydon in National One, imagine the beating they're gonna get at training.
Home again next week against Aston OE and who incidentally suffered a similar result against Hales last week.
Heads up.
Martyn.
What about this coming weekend? Firsts at home in the league to Moseley Oak, Devs away to Aston 3rds, Vets home to Aston 4ths (all are subject to confirmation)