Sefton RUFC

Pre-Match

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Challenging day today, with all 3 Sefton teams playing.

The Selection Committee have excelled themselves by naming 3 full teams.

Fantasy teams with substitutes.

  

 

The Wailing Wall

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A nice little introduction today for New Captain Goulding. With a dash of irony.

The team had been announced on Thursday evening, with New Captain Goulding putting an unknown 'mate' in the centres.
A non training, non paying, non member who has been kicked out of both Mossley Hill and Collegiate.

This “J. Fishwick” must have made slavering impression on New Captain Goulding, despite all his non qualifications, but it is another number in the team.

So, out of nowhere, we have a fantasy 16 on Thursday, but at 12 o’clock Saturday, we are down to a reality 15, with the impressionable J. Fishwick now unavailable: “he can’t play today, he has a daughter”.

  

 

The Numbers

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15 good men today. Most of them backs though.

Poor Darrell is asked to go prop. This will give him something to moan about later.

Blandie sees his world turned upside down, with the number 6 jersey being given to him by New Captain Goulding: “We’ve got a proper 9 now, finally, Fernando has actually played there before!”.

New Captain Goulding, as we all know, is a specialist, non catching winger.

Now, as the New Captain, he is a specialist, scrum pick up, number 8. I cannot bring myself to recall his scrum pick uping.

 

 

The Warm Up

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We arrive 1 and a half hour before the kick off.

Thats 90 minutes. 60 minutes longer than our usual 30 minutes.

Playing in the lowest league of the land (you cannot be relegated).

Just what is New Captain Goulding thinking? There’s no whiteboard here, or pads and cones.

I used my time wisely, mentally preparing over a nice (free) cup of tea in the bar.

We manage to drag out getting changed for 45 minutes, but it still left 45 minutes of “warm up”.

45 minutes to warm up? I am thinking, that’s at least 30 minutes into our match conditioning. This will not end well.

Tom Donnelly made good use of his time, wearing his warm up boots before having to delay the kick off by insisting he change to his white playing boots at the last moment.

Whilst he is doing his laces, Campo asks him, “Tom, it’s a very strong wind today, do you know which direction it is going?”.

Tom had to think for a moment, before pointing in the right direction. Campo debated on whether to ask him to consider the wind direction when he kicks, but keeps quiet.
A decision he would come to regret many times later.

 

  

The Game Plan

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No one knows what New Captain Goulding said (something about silly mistakes), but, with the howling loud wind, Campo insisted on VERY short passes, and NO kicking.

It would seem that this was not heard by all.

  

 

The Match

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It was actually quite close really, with the forwards doing all the scrummaging, and the backs knocking on.

All of the Birkenhead tries were due to our silly mistakes or bad decisions.

  

 

Kicking - General

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I guess we all kind of had an idea, certainly with the white boots change, that Tom Donnelly was a firm believer of the old proverb: "Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while".

Today, Tom was probably thinking he was due some luck.

Every time he got the ball (at 10, this is a lot), he kicked the ball downfield, chased it, and wanted to regather and score (he did this last year, at Oswestry). Today, mostly, it was bread and butter for the Birkenhead number 15.

Unfortunately, on one occasion (one in 12, 13?) the poor fullback doesn’t gleefully run the ball back, with interest.

He fumbles, and Tom is on it like Brendo with a left over pint, and scores out wide. A gift.

 

 

Kicking - Restarts

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Thankfully, we had Tom Donnelly playing today, and didn’t have to witness the random, prayer inducing restarts of Blandie: “it doesn’t matter if it’s left or right, as long as it goes 10 metres”.

With a strong assisting wind, Tom does pretty well with the many restarts we have in the first half (although why does he pinpoint their best running forward?).

 

After the half time break, both teams are all lined up, ready for the restart.

Tom bounces the ball a few times – I understand this is a technique to test the firmness of the ground, to allow for sweetness of the half volley. He does look the part really, the change to the white boots was a nice touch.

The Ref blows for time on and Tom does indeed sweetly time his drop kick, clearly opting for a high delivery that would allow us to pressure the Birkenhead receiver.

Unfortunately, Tom did not consider the half time change of ends, and that we were now running INTO the gale force wind.

The ball does go forward initially, but is soon turned around and it sails over our heads to land on the Sefton quarter line.

The young referee blows his whistle: “not 10 metres, scrum”.

A sheepish Tom mutters, “but it did go 10 metres, just not in the right direction”. The Sefton pack were not amused.

  

 

The New Boys

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We had a couple of new guys today, with young Hash coming along for his first game, and a more ‘mature’ Fernando, hailing from Brazil.

Hash shows a rare keenness, and has a lot to learn. Clearly the 3s is the best place for Hash, for his formulative years.

As for Fernando, after the game everyone is saying, “but you said you have played 9 in rugby before !!??”.

Fernando responds with, “Rugby League my friend – what is this game we played today?”.

As there is no lower team at Sefton, he will have to stay in the 3s.

  

  

The New Old Boy

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Great to see the return of an old 3’s favourite, Dave Willis (aka “Kurdish”).

After single handedly raising 2 children (one of them turned out to be a boy), Dave finally has some time to himself, and has come back, to rekindle some of the excellent rugby he used to be known for: Strong defence and powerful fast running.

Unfortunately, the years have not been kind for Dave, and the neglect and overindulgence were quickly evident.

I wouldn’t say Dave was definitely the main reason we lost today, but perhaps it would be good if he could maybe start to work on his fitness.

  

 

The Tries

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I’ve already mentioned Tom Donnelly’s Euro Millions effort above.

What I didn’t mention was, the 2 or 3 tries Tom gifted Birkenhead beforehand, with his 20 metre cut out passes to the virginal Hash on the wing, in the gale force wind, and his ill advised chip kicking.

We also had 3 others.

Firstly, is what is a tradition for Goulding, he gets a try after some very good lead up work by the back, and a great Louie Roose breakthrough. Goulding finishes it off under the posts.

(‘Tradition’, in that he scored his only other try when playing at Birkenhead last year).

I guess you don’t get the zing though, without some zang. Or, more appropriately, some clang:

From the game’s kick off, Goulding had watched the easy Birkenhead kick bounce a few times, and then chase it back to the Sefton try line. Here he waits till the bobbling ball stops before picking it up and finds himself confronted by 3 eager Birkenheadians. They draw near, and Goulding passes the ball behind him, where there is no one, and the 3 Birkenhead players end up arguing who gets awarded the try.

New boy Hash did have a number of clangers himself, but this was totally acceptable, from a player who had never even seen a rugby ball in his life before. His try was awesome though, chasing a wayward Tom Donnelly kick downfield, pressurising the opposition winger, picking up the scraps and scoring under the posts. (we must be thankful to Sefton Head Coach Jamie, for all the Try Scoring practice that we had done on Thursday night).

Fernando had a nice little run in the Birkenhead quarter, darting his way past a few aging players to score by the posts. (This almost made up for the earlier couple of easy interceptions he’d given for some runaway Birkenhead tries).

It took me a while to work it out, but basically, Birkenhead would allow you to score a try, if you set up 2 tries for them first.

 

Kicking - Conversions

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Ok, I’ve mentioned the 3 tries scored either under, or besides, the posts.

And the Sefton final score of 22.

Well, you’ve probably worked out that we had Tom Donnelly attempting the conversions today.

We can’t work out why he misses the kicks from out front, but nails the one from the sideline?

Coincidently, it was Tom’s try on the sideline that Tom converted.

Maybe he deems tries by other players as unworthy of conversion?

  

 

Injuries

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When you play with just 15 players, there are never any injuries.

Today we had the usual from Bleeding Heart Darrell. From the off, complaining of something, always last to the continual scrums. Admittedly, Darrell was doing most of the tackling *, and I’m sure, at one point, he was gunna come out with how old he was (until he saw Campo staring at him disdainfully). Darrell managed the whole match.

Dan Craig, unhappily playing with the 3s today (“I much prefer the 2s you know”), wanted to have a rest with some unsymptomed injury. Doctor Campo can’t even look at him: “Dan. Have a look at the subs bench mate, and tell me how bad your injury is”. Brave Dan soldiered on. Days like these add to your character.

* I find it quite amazing, how people like Lanky and Darrell can do most of the tackling for the team. I really don’t think its about us other players missing tackles or air tackling, its about the opposition targeting Lanky and Darrell.

Clearly, when you’ve got the ball, you look up, and decide the path of least resistance. The person who looks like they don’t know how, or are incapable of, tackling. So, you aim for Lanky and Darrell.

(this would also explain why Dobie never needs a shower after every game).

  

 

The End-of-Life Care Pathway

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Celebrating his 60^th birthday today, Campo has been wheeled out of the home, to help out with the numbers.

His carer had forgotten to pack his Sketcher Boots, and a ‘pair’ were found somewhere, several sizes too big.

New Captain Goulding tactfully orders, “you’re playing hooker today, them clown boots will help. 80 minutes”.

Campo looks longingly at the Birkenhead Clubhouse, where he’d noticed the defibrillator earlier. This was going to be a test of Action Avoidance that even Brendo would be proud of.

  

 

Prognosis

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Of course, Sefton were well into this game, but it got away from us in the last 30 minutes.

One mournfully wonders how the game would have gone, had we kicked off 30 minutes earlier, or had arrived 30 minutes later.

Hopefully New Captain Goulding will understand the 80 minute limitations of the 3s and plan accordingly next time.

Today though, it wasn’t about winning. It was about putting out 3 full teams, and doing Sefton proud.

All 3 teams lost, but we lost in good numbers.