Sefton RUFC

An away game at Prenton provided an unforeseen flaw in my motto, however toughness and quality prevailed:

Pre game – the wailing wall

The ones don’t like to make things easy for us poor twos folks, there magical team selections on Tuesday end with actual team pillaging on a Friday, and this week they took both Lankys in a sort of buy one get one half sized deal. 

Losing our experienced and large car owning hooker was a massive loss, but it was isaac aka delemare forrest hump aka the treedaphile aka the tree-defiler aka sir isacc newtree I was enraged at,

 I called seb in anger, the below is a transcript of our convo:

Me: WOOD you explain taking isaac

Seb: we have been PINING for him

Me: its not FIR you’re BARKing up the wrong tree, he should be NESTled with us

Seb: we MAPLE more players but until then hes with us

(subtle)

JP’s hidden agenda

At some point in June I went to JP with my debit card in hand and said to our resident PT I want to lose some weight and become a winger again, he assured me he could help, and boom I'm a front rower now. I had my suspicions at his motives, 4000 calories a day seemed a lot but I trusted: cheesecake for breakfast, bacon for dessert, that doesn’t even make sense. He had put me on what is called the Liam Brown diet.

What worse is I haven’t seen him since, not a word in months, no contact, won’t answer my calls, and when I went to the address on his PT business card in Speke, bloody Richard answered the door, I ended up driving him around all day to run errands, taking him to and from training, after I dropped him back at his house, he whispered in ear, props have to stick together.......

A prop has arrived .. and left?

We got one, and a good one, his name is Charlie, he wears white boots and claims he’s not a prop; erm Charles that’s my gimmick. We are desperate to keep him. Unfortunately, what we didn’t foresee was that he would be spending 45 minutes in the car with me and Blandie; there and back, at the time of writing he hasn’t responded to availability, come back other people can pick you up.

The match:

The pillaging stream runs downhill and we were forced to take very liberally from the 3s, leaving them in single digits. Lineouts would be an issue, although Harry Gribbon proved a good thrower, an experienced Prenton pack would compete for everything and Sefton got very few clean ball.

Our strength was in our 9-13, Daves gorgeous locks contrasted with the BMA (bald mans alliance) duo of Blandie and JJ with the jacked and juicy ginger Jedi Wayne outside, would be where we’d make most of our yards.

The game started badly with their flanker catching the ball and going untouched through a massive gap making 30 yards, before being tackled and jackled, Sefton eventually ploughed their way backfield with big runs from man of the match Wayne Banthorpe and ungrateful ex man of the match Joe Clarke, before Gorgeous passes the ball out wide to me then on to our resident livestock enthusiast JJ, to score in the corner.

A penalty conversion to Prenton, brought the score within two points before Sefton started playing some sublime rugby, ungrateful joe who was a constant ball carrier and yard earner getting a try, followed up by Sefton pummelling there line again, with a monstrous crash ball by Mark Dobie ended just short of the line being recycled by Sefton 2xvs new hooker to score.

Prenton scored to close the gap but the worst of it was our talisman and beefcake Gorgeous went off with a knee injury, the most gorgeous of injuries. We were down to 14 men with 40 minutes to go.

A move to Paul walker in the centres, and Blandie to 9 and we were off, Sefton got off to a roaring start when Danny Harrington picks the ball up outpaces his opposite men and sets up a simple two on one with me and the fullback... and goes himself and scores under the post. Danny is an interesting case, he always does the wrong thing but he does it so well, what a funky little space cat.

The trouble kicked in with being a man down and having annoyed the ref with backchat again, Sefton  found themselves defending their line like Spartans for 5 or 6 minutes at a time before Prenton score two tries to bring the game to within 5 points with 20 minutes left, one of there players proceeds to slap one of our players on the top of the head unprovoked in an attempt to provoke violence, instead we decided to just slap them about on the pitch.

Welsh JJ who has gone from a Scott Gibbs crash ball guy two seasons ago to a Barry John distributor last season, has now decided he’s a Leigh Halfpenny kicker, where is JP to stamp this guff out? Unfortunately, it was quite good, he at one point hit a 50-22 when the Prenton linesman realised what this entailed he unsubtly took a step to his right and suddenly it wasn’t a 50 -22, he got his rewards shortly after with another try, a Welsh brace; a ram and a ewe to put Sefton on the front foot.

Charlie our new prop that the ones definitely aren’t going to steal got in on the scoring action, crashing over the line to put the seal on the win, not finished though Wayne the unanimous man of the match got his obligatory try, cutting into the midfield smashing his way through to score, les must be trembling.

What a win, every man from 1 to 15 had to dig deep, suck wind and battered and bruised kept smashing forward, the pod play from Phil, Ben, Harry and Charlie Renshaw was sublime, the wingers brendo and Sean Muirhead despite a lack of ball got stuck in. Joe Clarke ran through brick walls all game long and Wayne Banthorpe played 1 vs 3 all game and made massive yards. The kind of game you live for, better than standing on the sidelines for 80 minutes.

After the game, everyone picked me up above their heads and kept tossing me in the air chanting best hooker ever, flattering but guys please.. i'm a winger

Post match:

Shower MVP was a hotly contested match with good showings from Danny Harrington and a focused Brendo but for the 57th time in a row the award was given to Sean ‘the rope’ Muirhead.

Back at the club:

‘When a man is making love to you, you need to roar like a dragon’  - campo 12.10.24 

Goulding challenged me to a race, Goulding. The man who got blitzed by lanky, he needs to stop chasing hookers.

Collegiate next!!!! Cmon

JJ’s autobiography:

In the Volkswagen UP we were regaled with tales of JJ’s upbringing, wow I said you should write this down, not but an hour later JJ sent me this snippet to help sell his book, coming soon:

Dod allan

Chapter 1 – Love at first sight

I was raised in the sleepy village of Eglwyswrw just outside Newport, my dad a successful farmer owned 10 acres of farmland, that was half the entire village! The other half belonged to Brynn Jenkins, who we were locked in a 300-year family feud with over who hated the English more.

Despite being encouraged not to speak to the Jenkins family there was a daughter my age called Catherine, she had long flowing blonde hair and radiated warmth and kindness, we were separated by just a stone wall but it felt impenetrable. I would often see her roaming around the field with her horse Maxwell and her sheep Dolly, I would smile and wave whenever our parents weren’t around to scold us, whether it was the fact we weren’t allowed to talk or something else, I couldn’t help it, it was love at first.

I would often climb over the wall when our fathers were a market and spend hours together, we were soul mates but every second I knew it was wrong; emotions unspoken, my heart was pounding a hundred miles an hour every time we made eye contact, I want you.. her eyes seem to say.

One night while the entire village was huddled in the red dragon pub watching the latest Joe Calzaghe fight, my dad and Brynn were there sat at opposite ends of the pub, I realised she wasn’t there; no girls allowed at those times, I knew this was my best shot to confess my love before I left for university.

I don’t know where this confidence had arisen from but as I got to Catherines field I leaped the fence and marched over to her, a lump in my throat

“I love you; I have loved you since the first moment I saw you”

She said nothing though, blindsided by years of secret friendship, she had always known deep down but still she could not of been more surprised

“I need you, I don’t give a damn what our parents think, what the village thinks”

Her mouth twitched as if she was about to speak, but nothing came out

“Dammit Dolly, say something, put me out of my misery”

“BAAAAAAAAAAA”

We made love for hours even though lambing season was just round the corner. I never did find out what happened to Catherine, apparently, she is some sort of singer, hope she’s doing well.

Next weeks chapter:  The University years

Yours, sHambling