Bog fest after christmas food fest left us so slightly short of the winning line.

Match report January 5th 2012
Barnet Elizabethans 2’s 15; Bishops Stortford 4s 10.

The first game post Christmas is always an interesting game, see who has eaten and drunk too much, see who is still available to play, and to see if who really wants to be out in the mud playing with their mates.
In most of these respects the 4s sailed through this opening test. We had a great selection of players (as did the 3s and 5s) so a great commitment shown by a lot of players through the club. On the day at Barnet, with the pitch best described as a bog, everyone played with commitment and desire too, and although the final score was not in our favour I was proud to lead the team in and out.

Unusually we got our warm up about right in terms of time and intensity apart from the expected kick off being delayed for 5 minutes due to the lack of a match ball, and in the first 10 minutes we played solidly, but not as well as we should have, and a few poorly directed kicks (me and Skelton) and a few missed tackles in the backs let in a try shortly after. We gathered ourselves together and set out that we knew we should be competing well with this team, and from then on the game became a mudfest of attritional forward play with us having the edge in the set pieces (Frosty and Jerry hurting their scrum hugely – admitted by the ref half way through; and Aaron and Ryan winning most ball in the lineout), them edging it in the loose, and honours even when rucking. When it did go out to the backs, invariably it was kicked onto the sloping pitch to play for territory as the ball spent most of the day looking more like a rugby ball shaped turd due to the amount of mud on it, making passing trickier than it looked.

Half time arrived with us 7 – 3 down from a well taken John Skelton penalty. The second half then continued in largely the same manner with them scoring another penalty for yet another rucking penalty (we have to learn not to get caught!) until one of their backs tried to grubber it through, but (possibly put off by my imminent sledge hammer like tackle ) chipped it straight into the arms of a happy John Skelton, who ran up the pitch, side stepped their full back to score under the posts, followed by conversion. 10 – 10, we knew we were in with a good shout now. For the remaining 20 minutes, we didn’t have the upper hand, but we certainly didn’t deserve to lose it. Skelton had another penalty which went well over the right hand post but literally over, and their linesman didn’t give it, but was inches either way, and for me the most annoying point was when I took a quick tap penalty in front of the ref, broke through their line, 10 metres to go with no one to stop me got brought back because despite taking it in front of him, the ref was looking the other way and so said I hadn’t. To be fair, other than that I thought he had an excellent game, but that in all probability did cost us the match.

Instead pushing for the win, with about 5 minutes to go and a lot of very tired players on the pitch who haven’t played (or trained possibly..) since 15th December, a ball did get lost, and their slightly younger and fitter backs managed to run the length of the pitch and score, which was to be honest, a pretty dark moment after the effort that the entire team had given. We pushed for another try, and spent the last 5 minutes in their 22 but it wasn’t to be.

So whilst we lost the game, and all felt pretty bad about it, writing this there was an awful lot of positives.

1)We played as a committed team to a man, with nobody stopping, giving up or not giving their best.

2)Clarkey, whilst no longer any use as a prop being the only person who has lost about 2 stone over Christmas reverted to his old position as wing looking pretty useful, and certainly delivered the tackle of the match, scything their 2nd row player down with only the try line left,

3)The return of Rob Neal (note to anyone else – don’t be my manager or vice captain – they have all been injured or not able to play for several months!) who added enthusiasm, direction and clear aggression.

4)James Newby having a great game at centre, not his natural position; and Sean Lumley discovering his love of full back.

5)A great game by Craig Buckley who is back for a while now he’s finished poncing around at university doing his (I think) Masters (congratulations!).

6)I was torn by man of the match by Pete Richardson for his display of tacking – typified by running the width of the pitch after a scrum to tackle their wing; running, rucking and helping me out at the back of the scrum with pressure from their flankers.
Man of the match in this case is Men, Craig Buckley and Pete Richardson. Very well played guys.

This week we won’t have a dick of the day because nobody really deserved it (although Mr Skelton came very close by passing it directly to one of their players who was standing in our line). Well played guys. Home game next week!