Welwyn 3s 29 : Bishops Stortford 4s 5

The brief behind the scenes story of this week was that of unavailability. A few thirds played for the 2s, and clearly too many people were copying me by skiing, holidaying, or in one lucky case, enjoying Harlequins corporate hospitality. For you reading between the lines, yes, I was jealous! One bizarre case was me not receiving any of his 4 texts (he told me the day after). The long and short though, was that we rocked up with 14 players, one of which injured. Fortunately that was the alcohol powered and indestructible Diddy so despite several knocks to the head, he managed to survive the game. Even more impressively, Kev Stockdale managed to acquire a player to warm up on our game by filling in at fullback until he was needed by his team. Thanks to James for filling in who I’m sure will be reading this, and to everyone else for a sterling effort and making the effort to travel.

Winning the toss on a flat, windless pitch with overcast skies probably wasn’t a deciding factor, but we started by receiving kick off. This led to the most impressive part of our game, and in the first 15 minutes our forwards out rucked, mauled, tackled, chased, scrummed and out jumped the Welwyn forwards. Unfortunately a little too much energy and a little more white line fever led to a few isolated players and turnovers meaning that instead of being realistically 10 to 15 up, we practiced our normal pattern of letting an opposition player instead slip through the middle of our field, and to be converted.

The game then settled into a slightly more stable pattern as energy levels took their grip, but the long and short of the next 25 minutes was of our forward dominance, particularly in rolling mauls and the scrum. The backs were led by Ross Moorly having a debut game at fly half, but with too many players playing out of position, whilst ground was gained regularly, we were unable to capitalise through the backs. Instead, our tried and trusted maul rumbled from near the 22, to within about 1 ½ metres of their try line and Kev Stockdale popping out the front to dive heroically over the line. Ross, unfortunately out of practice with his place kicking, failed the conversion - a fact overshadowed by me kicking 3 balls from penalties into peoples locked back gardens much to the annoyance of the Welwyn players. Fortunately we had our own private monkey in the guise of Kenny Byrne who, demonstrating an unusual level of agility, managed to climb into and then back out of the gardens.

Half time came with the score at 12 – 5, and a real feeling that we deserved to be winning and that we should take the game in the second half, and then unfortunately the departing of our borrowed full back.
The game restarted in the same fashion with our forwards dominating most stages of play, but as we began to tire more players supported each other a little less and so became more isolated more rapidly. This led to predictable turnovers, and the ultimately at least a one man overlap most times. We defended superbly on many occasions, but in this manner Welwyn scored 3 more tries to our none making the final score 29 – 5.
Creditable mentions go to several people…

Aaron for him winning all of his lineout and slapping most of it back nowhere near me for the first time this season. Again, great all round effort from the big man.

Kev Stockdale for his immense footwork at the back of the scrum and some lovely off loading.

Ross Moorly for ably stepping in at 10 and making a damn good fist of it.

The combined front row (Clarkey, Andy Southgate and Jerry) for demolishing the Welwyn scrum, and Andy striking the ball like an exocet missile to the back of the scrum as well as superb lineout work, and superb rucking / mauling.

Jake Brough for some outstanding runs and tackling, and Conor for taking on a very large and strong centre and coming out very well.

Rob Neil almost took up prize fighting for the first time I have ever seen after an altercation with their second row (which scared me), and

Kenny Byrne running up the wing, collecting his own kick and nearly scoring try of the season.

Man of the match however went to Conrad Davy, for some superbly aggressive play, boundless energy, numerous tackles and a never say die attitude.

Dick of the day, unfortunately, as he had an excellent game (but so did everybody), went to a certain prop by the name of Richard. Reasons will not be explained, but he has promised me he won’t do the third one again, and in return he won’t win this award again this season either.