|
Heavies average weight to plummet over rest of season What is he on about this week you may ask given the headline? Well, the big news from Saturday was not so much the vital league win over the Ealing Evergreens but a really nasty, and potentially career-ending injury to the massive, powerful, ridiculously-accented second row / number 8 James "I am considerably richer than yow" Darragh. He broke his tibia and is having his leg bolted back together today. Our thoughts are with him, his wife, and whoever has to teach him to use crutches. We are playing this coming Saturday for Jim, so bloody well make yourselves available! We will also be playing for Dougal who flies to Oz on Sunday! I understand that there are tentative plans for a half or two on Saturday night. Onto the match report. Well, I guess we just thought we could turn up, turn on the charm and walk away with a resounding victory. Given the recent performances against Barnes, the Army et al, we could have been forgiven for thinking that would be the case. However, nobody told Ealing that they were meant to lie down and take it, and they certainly gave us a fright from the start. We were 7 – 0 down after five minutes, as they scored a good-looking try through Steeny in the centre, after some good lineout work in our 22. 5 minutes later they got another one, following an interception on their left wing. Oh sh*t thought skips, this one's going to take some explaining! However, this was the cue for us to wake up, stop trying to win the game on our own, and to knuckle down to some real dog. In true festival Heavs style, up the jumper the ball went, and over the line went Yelds for his debut Heavies try. He disappeared too early to get the statutory jug in but it will rollover to this Saturday coming. Further tries were scored by Chocs (two, less the interception he gave away, making a net one addition to the Top Try Scorer League Table), Satts (finally caught a Fairny pop pass to go over unopposed), and two others for people who may have been forwards. Ealing are a smart team and clearly understood that if they threw lineout ball anywhere near 4 then Gaddsy would nick it. The result was some good ball from their front jumper, but that meant we were able to close them down much quicker in the back line. Special mention to Bosh for standing in on the wing for the whole first half, following Gore's disgracefully late arrival (another jug for this weekend). When we had the ball we looked reasonably useful particularly when we started to move it beyond the inside channels. However, we never got our phase rugby going, over-committing to the rucks leaving very few runner options for Kiwi Mike at fly half or JBS at scrummy. We should have more confidence in ourselves to clear out and get the ball back. JBS feigned some neck injury to excuse his bad passing, but it seemed to have cleared up by the time he came back on at full back and saw the try line beckoning from 40 yards. Chocs had another good game, making yards, committing defenders and leaving spaces outside him. At times we didn't get the ball through the hands quickly or accurately enough to take advantage of these spaces and some modest tackling from the Evergreens. Skips swerved a number of times to find contact and was able to offload to a fat boy, that got us a little bit of go-forward in the second half. Ealing never gave up – far from it. They ran everything in the second half, and looked dangerous through Andy, their fly half, Steeny and their other centre. Our mid-field defence was pretty good though (first try notwithstanding), and we kept them to one further score in the second half, when JBS showed their skipper and hooker the outside, which he duly took and cantered over near the posts. He made a late attempt at amends by trying to tackle him around the neck which was spotted by the ref. JBS then accused the ref of being stupid, which is always a good idea, and normally Clem's preserve. A penalty restart to them ensued. However, the injury to Jim was to follow. He had come on for Lloydy, picked up from number 8, ran past their 7 who had found something less dangerous to do than tackling Jim, and straight at their fly half. He took one look at the Darragh upper body, and wisely decided to head south to his lower leg. However, Jim's foot must have got caught because something had to give, and it was the tibia. Jez took control using all his experience as a pharmacist and hatchet man for the NHS to perform an orthopaedic diagnosis and announce "nothing's broken". Luckily we had two 6 foot 8ers in Geoff and Gaddsy to carry Jim off. However, they are now only 6 foot 2 following compression to their upper spines. Jim was bundled into a waiting car and rushed to the furthest hospital we could find, Basingstoke. He is still there and was in Trauma Ward D1 yesterday. I know he would appreciate some cheering up, cakes, pies, sarcastic comments etc so please do get in touch. Addy sent out the number earlier. Oh, by the way, the final score was 38 17 to us. Team: Yeldham, Tozer, Tonka, Geoff, Gaddsy, Lloydy, Vyv, Fenty, JBS, Kiwi Mike, Skips, Chocs, Satts, Bosh, Fairny, Grunds, Hugo, Jim, Budge, Gore. Rosslyn Park Benchers Onto this week. We are playing the Rosslyn Park Benchers at home, 2pm kick off. The Calcutta Cup game is at 5pm in Murrayfield so no absence excuses acceptable. We need a win (see below) and we know that the Rozzers always give us a hell of a battle. Please make yourselves available. Buzzard
The following week is Chis's 70th birthday game. I am not entirely sure of the format but will liaise with the Buzzard himself to ensure I can borrow some of the 40 or so players he has nobbled to play in his side. More details to follow. League table positions The league has just been updated by the powers that be. Good news, WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE! We have 36 points (excluding any from the Weybridge situation). We have 2 games left to play (again, excluding Weybridge). We have a massively better points difference than anyone else at +252 compared to the next best of +45 (Esher). HOWEVER, a number of teams still have many games left to play due I guess to the weather interruptions. Your skipper has not been busy at work today and so has done some detailed regression analysis, using Monte Carlo simulations run through a proprietary algorithmic decision engine. The result is, in a nutshell, that we can still lose this league if we lose both of our remaining games. Rosslyn Park have a massive 7 games left to play, Ealing 4, Esher 5 and Barnes 3. If they each win all of their remaining games (which is not possible given some are against each other, but my model is not perfect!), then Ealing and Rozzers can both end up on 42 points. The points system is 4 for a win, 2 for a loss, 3 for a draw, 4 for a walkover, and 0 for scratching a game. There are no bonus points. Our two remaining games are toughies, in Rosslyn Park and Esher, so laurels cannot be rested upon until we have at least one win in the bag. I suggest we do that this Saturday against the Rozzers, and then plan on finishing the league season off with a bang against the Expendables on the 17th April. If doing it for Darragh or Dougal is not motivating, do it for me. If that doesn't work, do it for your queen and country. That is all.
Pip pip
Skips
|
