Excellent preseason warm up winning start against good Woodford side.

We welcomed Woodford to silver Leys for a preseason friendly, to get a fair few players playing, get bodies used to hits and running for more than 5 minutes, and to see if our new coach was making the difference we hoped he might.

The day was perfect beer drinking weather – hot and sunny, which made the fact we had a few more players than the league matches limit of 18 available very welcome.

The game started with a swing of my not so trusty boot playing at 10, and our game very quickly showed evidence of an improvement over last year other than Browneys ability to irritate the referee with consummate ease. The general structure of play was a solid and reliable set piece with the exception of a lack of clarity in the new scrum laws with this ref playing very differently to the previous one and allowing a big hit and to then continue pushing, however despite this allowing their scrum to win their ball easily we presented a very solid defence and structured loose play.

After a few minutes of toing and froing, this led to the remarkably nimble for his years, Steve Smith taking the final of several passes to skim up the line of the left wing, then, impressively for him, running it almost under the posts.

The game then continued in a similar vein with our line not really threatened barring one or 2 occasions, snuffed out on our 22 before their relative lack of support compared to ours gave us enough numbers to get back.

The 2nd try was scored by flanker come inside centre, Ollie Jones although I must sadly admit my alzeimers is catching up with me fast, and I cannot remember it. I think it came from a ruck near their line, and him taking a straight line to burst through under the posts.
Almost at the end of the 1st half, the referee telling me we had a minute left and Browney said, why not call time now. I said we should enjoy it, put a hanging restart in which our forwards superbly ran under, taking the ball to quickly rumble to the Woodford 22. From there 2 rucks and then out to me who, using excellent vision and abilities kicked a grubber through then heroically tackled (cough stumbled and fell onto) their 15 who dropped the ball accidentally grabbing one of his nuts in the process. I didn’t see the consequent try as I was persuading their 15 it was accidental, I’m told Craig Brough picked the ball up, drew two players and off loaded to Spencer, who scored our third try.

Half time came, and a few subs were made, before we restarted the 2nd half. Their 9-10 combination were beginning to get away from 1-2 tackles as people tired in the heat, and they used this after we lost the ball to escape up the right wing scoring a good try to bring it back to 15-7. To counter this, we reverted to our more structured game and worked the ball up the left wing with some more good play. A penalty soon was given to us for them popping up in the scrum, which was spun out, and passed to Clarkey on an inside charge, crashing over the line. It was pointed out to me in the bar later (correctly) that to a man we all just watched him…

Unfortunately shortly after this a scrum collapsed, leading to the Woodford loosehead lying on the floor with his head in my arms and a rather painful neck. It was decided he wasn’t going anywhere until the ambulance got there, and I wasn’t going to risk the wrath of Tubby by moving onto the 1s pitch and so it was agreed to call the game over at about 60 minutes. Fortunately the Woodford captain has since told me he was given the all clear by A&E, and thanked us for our help in that unpleasant situation.

In conclusion a very good start to the season, with much greater consistency of play. Our (possibly short) policy of asking the opposition captain for MoM and DoD leads to the following.

Man of the Match, Andy Simpson for his good nature, getting round the pitch well and good skill levels.

Dick of the Day – Browney, for annoying the hell out of all their players (and the ref). not the worst quality for a scrum half…

Next week the league starts… Away to Old Ashmoleans.