Sefton RUFC

Chief Match Reporter Note: sHamling has kindly volunteers to contribute to today’s match report, his fine words and never ending sentences have been italicised.

 

The beginning of Goulding’s “Goulden Era” got off to a flying start, with great numbers and great rugby played.

But it was Brendo’s new old school haircut that stole the attention, was this a smart decision or should he mull it over.

 

The Match

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Merseyside Police lined up with a big ole pack, Sefton with killer pace in the back 3, the first twenty minutes were incredibly erratic, with Sefton trying to force the issue, moving the ball before play was set, throwing wild offloads. If that wasn’t bad enough on defence, Sefton couldn’t go more than three phases without a blatant infringement. At least Lanky manages to look surprised every time he’s caught cheating, Giz * just looks like he wants to get caught. 5 penalties in a row down after a knock on in our own 22 we are down 7 points.

* Great to see Giz back in a Sefton shirt again, he’s been on walkabout again. Giz is a Chief back in his native Fijian village. Sefton Chief Jamie translates his full tribal name: “ShitGizstoppissingabout”

Fortunately, Captain Goulding seeks to contain his excitement and pulls himself off after 10 minutes. This proves a masterstroke, as Sefton tweaked their play, slowing play down, getting good forward carries from Giz, Ben Webster and Matty Williams, Muirhead who is now a nine (nine and a half on a good day) provides a simple pass to Seb on the wing to outpace his man and beat the fullback to score. What was confusing about this was Seb’s decision to swan dive into the corner instead of run it unopposed into the middle. This is the play of a man who hasn’t had his confidence beaten out of him by Campo… Yet. Tom fails to convert 7-5.

A near identical try was scored with Seb outpaced two men still diving over a bit premature but slightly more centrally, converted.

Sefton, 30 minutes in brought on their bomb squad, with 6 or 7 quality players coming on to turn the screw, with big ball carriers Ste Alcock, Joe Clarke aka smoky joe aka diamond joe and dave murphy on, along with wily veterans Campo and Paul Walker.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to put any more points on the board before half time but were optimistic as we now had the hill and a hungry squad. Sefton took control of the game with a third try courtesy of Jimmy 2 tries **, this was preceded by a series of bizarre events. First Tom Donnelly attempted to pass the ball through dobie at 200 mph to joe Clarke, was somehow caught by dobie, then even more rarely Ste Alcock passed the ball, I hit the line to score uncontested under the posts.

** I think this is a reference to sHamling’s first person. Like a self appointed nickname, similar to “Big Arms”.

 

Despite the second half domination in both open play and set piece, silly missed tackles saw Sefton’s lead cut to 7. A great try was scored by Tom Donnelly, a high kick was chased by several players, with Harry Osbourne being dragged down off the ball before Tom scored the try of the game. 

Another try was scored by the police after some missed tackles Sefton soon retaliated with some great running rugby finished off by Danny Harrington in the corner for the 31-17 victory.

Goulding post game declared himself Sefton’s only undefeated captain, as factually inaccurate as that is, it just highlights the good vibes that the 3s are currently building. Long may it continue.

Yours princess ***.

*** Yet another self proclaimed nick name of sHamling’s. I think it draws some comparison to Snow White’s activity after she ate the apple.

 

Chief Match Reporter Note: Thank you sHamling, for your view on today’s match. Everyone hopes you get better soon.

Back to normal now….

 

 

The (patented) Air Tackle

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Great to see that Campo is still guessing the right way to leap in Sefton’s defence. He was asked to explain his pathetic attempt on the Police’s reserve winger, who brushed past him on his way to a runaway try:

“I’ve played a bit of Veteran’s rugby, where a special cap will mean that you can’t tackle a player, because he is too frail.

When I saw the Police winger coming towards me, running like a triton in his bright pink socks, I thought, ‘oh dear, he must have some terrible affliction or something – I can’t tackle him’. And so I let him through, making it look like he’d sidestepped around my gallant leap”.

 

Kind Words of Encouragement

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Ok, first game of the season.

There’s gunna be some dropped ball, some crap passes, and maybe some dodgy decision making.

Sean Muirhead, Sefton’s third best 9, lived up to expectations.

For the rest of the team though, it was very frustrating, with temperatures coming to boiling point when Sefton get awarded a penalty, deep in the Police’s half….

With the entire Sefton team on the open side, and only Lanky wandering around on a big blind side (there was a scrum there about 5 minutes ago), Muirhead takes a quick tap and shuffles down the blind side. The entire crowd takes a sharp intake of breath, thinking perhaps it wasn’t a great idea.

Fortunately, there’s the gentle father figure of Mark Dobie, standing above Sean, whispering quietly to him *, which somehow prompts Muirhead to throw the ball to a totally bewildered and totally isolated Lanky.

* Some of us could lip read Dobie, and think that he said, “Muirhead you CAN’T. Far can listen to others will ya”.

 

Injuries

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Somewhat luckily for Sefton, we seemed to avoid any injuries, even with big Joe playing.

sHamling said he got covid though, but it is probably just a cry for attention.

The poor Police were getting carried off all game, it was uncanny. It seemed everyone was suffering serious injuries.**

** It was only after the game, walking past the Police spectators and the rather eye-catching Police physiotherapissed, did the cause of all the ‘upper thigh injuries’ become apparent.

 

Sefton’s Wander Boy

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Muirhead. He’s such an enigma.

It feels like he’s been at the Club for many years, and yet, can anyone ever remember seeing him on a rugby pitch?

Pre-season training, running around in complete ‘Action Avoidance’ mode, Muirhead has been outstanding.

With no Dave Almond around, Jay Evans learning to be a parent, Blandie looking to move into the front row and Brendo trying to emulate Charlie Taylor, there has been NO scrum halves to run the backline at training.

Up steps Sean Muirhead, and his distribution is immaculate! Passing perfectly to the people that he’s actually looking at.

It’s amazing! Not only had anyone seen Sean play before, no one had ever seen him pass either.

Today Sean did an admirable job. The Sefton number 9 shirt looks to have his name on it. We can’t wait for next week. ***

 

The End-of-Life Care Pathway

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A lot of people have shown a lot of care and consideration in these final years, watching Campo’s demise and raging infirmity.

Seeing him go from 15, to 11, 6, hanging onto 2, and now to 16.

How long before he has to wear the Special Cap of Invincibility (ie, unabled to be tackled), or devote himself fully to putting out the flags and topping the water bottles?

Well, by today’s standard, its gunna be a long while, with Campo slotting into the backline and setting up 2 tries out wide. “Sefton’s Super Sub” was being bandied about.

 

Similarly, it was nice to see some signs of life in Lanky, after a very quiet and secretive summer break. A lot of people thought he’d finally eaten his last bit of Love Pie.

Lanky today showed there is no substitute for experience. His methods of energy conservation are a lesson for any youngster looking to get in the game, passively.

One fine example was when Sefton lost a scrum on the half way. Lanky, at hooker, instantly sees that a Police try is imminent, and remains rooted on the half way line. Admittedly, the try imminency took about 10 minutes, but no one was ever going to blame Lanky for holding up the Sefton restart.

 

 

Under New Management: Captain Goulding

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We were fortunate to have a small crowd watching today, with ex-player Jay Spencer providing some unbiased thoughts from the sideline:

Dick of the day: Jay "Catchy" Goulding.

A new season began with the new skipper and after a fast start Sefton were in the Coppers 22 within 30 seconds.

With some lovely hands spraying the ball out wide Sefton looked to score with an overlap, only for Catchy to get his 1st knock on of the season, thus ending the early attack.

Nice to see the captain showing the youngsters what not do to.

Words of encouragement from the crowd: "He could be a regular at a brothel and not catch the clap him".

Thanks for this Jay.

 

Prognosis

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The backs today were very good in attack. Obviously with Seb's pace being a factor the ball was sent through the hands out wide and caused the opposition lots of problems. Clearly Seb needs to be getting more of the ball though, as 3 tries is much better for the team, than 2.

Again, a good spirited game, with today's ref (Bobby, well known to both sides) being surprisingly good, calling it right down the middle and letting the game flow as well as it could. Perhaps a yellow card for Goulding would not have been unwelcome.

Looking forward to next week’s game, Captain Goulding is going for a Sefton 3s Team Record: 2 wins in a row.

 

*** Addendum. Yes, you guessed it, Muirhead is not available next week. Seems he has other priorities, of a blue persuasion. Perhaps the reliable, ‘hard working’ Brendo **** would be a better 9 this year…..

**** Temporary Match Reporter sHamling has put forward a eulogy for Brendo:

Bogan Jesus: The Life of Brendo

Brendo is a true club man; he has voluntarily got a mullet, not a Charlie Taylor mullet, the real shebang.

A haircut designed to insight fear and repel the opposition. Although it may only work on women, only time will tell.

However he had one of his best games ever, leading us to ask who is Brendo:

Brendan McCrudden born to parents Bruce and Sheila in a Bunnings Warehouse sometime in the eighties, he was visited by 3 sick bastards at birth bringing gifts of sunnies, a few tinnys and an esky which was fair dinkum.

Aged 33 he was kicked out of the Gold Coast and came to live in Liverpool.

On the 5th of September 2025, he grew ***** a mullet. That is all.

***** Fashioned.