Sefton RUFC

The Numbers
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The game was nearly called off, such was the player availability, even with Sefton 3’s motto: “We will never cry off (before Christmas)”.

New Captain “Give me 4 players and I’ll give you a team” Goulding has managed to assemble a team out of nothing. 
He’s like Jesus at the festival with the fishes and the ale.

No one can understand the drain on player availability nowadays. Surely the post-Christmas sales are well finished?
As for the low temperatures and frosty pitches, there are rugby stockings and gloves that are now in ‘Forwards’ sizes.
Sadly, it seems adult rugby participation is more focused now on social media or WhatsApp contributions, rather than actually playing.

Sefton’s call for players goes viral. Our plea was so desperate, one of the junior players dad stepped forward, Kyle.
He looks like he’s never played any sport before and clearly has no idea about rugby, but we have to accept all types nowadays.
2s Generous Lipstick Captain Kev has kindly lent us 3 of his ‘subs’, and Port Sunlight has donated 2 or 3 guys from the adjoining pitch. 
(Even the 1s had hit rock bottom, with the well retired Jamie Luck being rolled out of retirement to ‘sub’ at Bolton)

  

The Game Plan
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With New Unorganised Captain Goulding blindly rushing about filling water bottles and rugby balls, we decide to introduce ourselves, and vow to get to know each other more during the game.

 

The Toss
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The 2 opposing Captains have gathered around the ref. It is a young girl.
They are letting women take charge of men’s rugby games now.
Nobody asked me. 

It’s actually a cracking day for rugby today.
Quite mild, for January, the pitch is nice and soft, but the low sun was so bright, it was like an eclipse.
If you looked directly at it, you’d go blind. (Similar to what your mum told you when you were little, when she caught you at it.)

The senior players had all agreed that you wouldn’t wanna be playing into that, you couldn’t see a thing. 

 

The Tosser
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New Captain “Don’t tell me what to do” Goulding correctly guesses which hand the ref held the piece of grass, and elects to run into the laser like sun!!
It is a blindingly illogical decision.
We are doomed before the game starts. 

The Sefton backs call for their sunglasses.
Campo at fullback calls for a cardboard box with a pinhole in it.
The forwards call for a special ball with a bell in it, but poor Lanky isn’t wearing his hearing aids.
Goulding gives us a smug look that kinda says, “now you’ll know what it’s like to fumble and drop every ball”.

All the Birkenhead players began to stretch their kicking leg. 

 

NB1. Last week, I deliberately didn’t write a Match Report because it would have just been about Goulding’s inadequacies and shortcomings. He had a nightmare and another repeat report would’ve just been like a broken record.
NB2. Today, New Captain “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” Goulding gave me the Man of the Match award.

 

The Match
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Birkenhead had 3 good players, a forward and 2 really fast backs. Basically, whenever they got the ball, they scored.
Sefton didn’t have any fast players. They had Anthony Hawksford.

 

The Tries
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NB: It is very rare indeed, that I get to write about Sefton tries.
But there were 3 pretty amazing tries from us today….

T1. In the first half, after about 90 seconds of non stop, continual phases, hammering at the Birkenhead tryline, Tansie gets tackled about 5 metres out, but reaches out and, holding the ball between his forefinger and thumb, touches down for our first try. Lucky it wasn’t Lanky or Campo really.

  

T2. Sefton’s second try would have made Coach Jamie wet, with pride.
Brian Gardner has kindly got AI to provide a fitting description:

The move started deep in our own half and quickly turned into something straight out of a highlight reel.
The ball zipped along the back line with real intent, catching the defence napping as it went through hands you wouldn’t normally expect to see out there.
First the hooker (Lanky) stepped in like a seasoned fly-half, shipping a crisp pass on to the tight-head prop (Brian), who showed surprising soft hands and even better vision.
Seeing the fullback bite in, the big prop calmly sucked him out of the line and, at just the right moment, released the pass wide to our second-row forward (Paul Murphy) hugging the touchline.
What happened next had everyone laughing and cheering in equal measure.
Rolling back the years, the lock suddenly rediscovered his former life as a lightning-quick winger, putting on the afterburners with a grin on his face and defenders trailing in disbelief.
With a nostalgic burst of pace and a dive in the corner, he grounded the ball for a try that will be talked about all season — proof that once a winger, always a winger… even if the jersey number and waistline have changed a bit.

(This prose will be printed off and framed over the Sefton fireplace).

  

T3. Last try Wins!
Amazing sequence here, the ref has said it’s the last play, and both teams realise the importance of finishing well.

The charitable Birkenheadians have taken pity on New “I’m only selected because I’m Captain” Goulding, and allowed him to run with the ball (the ref has kindly ignored his knock on).
The Sefton players have to point to where the tryline is, and Goulding sets his little legs to ‘Rapid’.
He begins his jilting, veering run through the standing opposition, who actually join in the Sefton chant of, “go Jay, go Jay!”.
This goes on for an eternity (I thought his name was "Fucking Goulding”?), before he makes an involuntary tackle and drops the ball. 

But there’s one of the Port Sunlight spare players there – in a Sefton shirt!
He is of an age, but it looks like he knows what he’s doing. He picks the ball up, his grey hair, at the back, almost flowing behind him, such is his blistering canter, and darts through half the Birkenhead team to score sweetly under the posts, for a Sefton (moral) victory.
He probably played at a higher level back in the 70s, you don’t forget stuff when it’s natural. 

  

 

Injuries
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Nothing too serious today, although we did have to start with Chris McCleary.

Good old Chris.
Like some lads, who will shag another sheep (just in case people start forgetting, or didn’t know about the first sheep), Chris McTeary starts up after about 5 minutes, sitting down in backplay, vomiting, sobbing away about having no sleep and there’s no Guinness on the pitch. His pronouns are “There, there”.
Some of us show concern, for Chris has done some refereeing, and our ref had a heart attack last week, but he gets himself up, gets a taxi, and goes home.
(Really, this shouldn’t even be in the ‘Injuries’ section. There was nothing wrong with him).

 

Could probably also mention Tansie here, although his ‘injury’ is a standard, “I’m only good for 20 mins before I have to go off”.
Fortunately, we squeezed the whole of the first half out of Tansie (he did walk for 20 minutes), before he hobbled off with his “my ankle will blow up if I continue”.
He did play well though, even though we all thought he should be in the forwards.

 

  

The Difference
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It could have been pretty even today, with the players being shared and the numbers kinda equal.
The real difference though, was Anthony Hawksford, “playing” for Sefton.
With McTeary crying off so early, Anthony had to move into the 9 position, with Port Sunlight’s “Headless” going to 10.
Unfortunately, this meant Anthony saw a lot of ball, allowing Anthony to illustrate his “What Not to Do on the Rugby Pitch” masterclass.

Although Anthony showed a lot of imagination, he did tend to repeat a number of his Rugby “Lessons”:

L1. Restarts.
Initially, Anthony tried for a number of short restarts, but never managed to find 10 metres. The heavy Birkenheaded pack eagerly optioned for a scrum.
Later, Anthony excelled in kicking the ball straight out. Stubbornly attempting to find a leaping (offside) Brendo down the touchline.
We probably could’ve saved a lot of time after a Birkenhead try, by just having a scrum on the halfway, Birkenhead feed.

L2. Kicking in General Play.
The old adage, “a kick is only as good as it’s chasers”, seems to have been ignored by the youngsters of today.
Although Anthony did try a variety of kicks (long, short, chip), the unmarked Birkenhead fullback always had loads of space and time to return the ball, with relish.

L3. Kicking for Goal.
With Anthony’s remarkable ability to hoof the restarts straight into touch, we were all astounded to see Anthony’s attempt for goal, after Paul Murphy’s try under the posts.
The sorry dribbling attempt that just rolled over the tryline did, in fact, go through the posts, with Anthony trying to claim it as a 1 pointer.
Further disappointment and shame hung over the Sefton team.

L4. Dispossession.
Clearly Anthony likes a little jinking run. Usually crossing behind the Sefton forwards before easily thrown to the ground and having the ball ripped off him.
After about a dozen occurrences of this, Anthony decides to start passing the ball instead.

L5. Passing.
Luckily, the Sefton 3s are used to slow and poor distribution, with Blandie and Brendo being the very foundation of the 3’s “slow it down” strategy.
Anthony took the mantle well, introducing a new distribution variation involving Birkenhead players.
The first interception pass he threw, the opposition 10 did have to stretch out to grab the ball, before his unchallenged and unchased stroll to score under the posts.
The second interception was a thing of beauty though, the on rushing Birkenhead player didn’t even have to check his stride or reach out for the ball. It was perfectly in the breadbasket, then under the posts.

L6. Tackling.
Cannot comment on this, as it was not evidenced.

To be honest, Anthony was that bad today, there were a few mutterings after the game, about bringing Blandie back from the 2s.

 

 

Coincidence?
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Lanky also played for the 3s today.
Why his missus brought him some new boots for Christmas is beyond me. Lanky could have happily stepped back, into the sideline and maybe been trusted to be a water boy or something non customer facing at Sefton.
But, we still have him playing, and I wouldn’t say the 3s loss was entirely down to Lanky.

The 3s game ended about 10 minutes before the 2s game, on the adjoining pitch, and the game was neck and neck.
Someone got injured and Lanky was called upon to help the 2s finish the game.
From then, the result was obvious, with Port Sunlight 1s running in another 3 tries.

You gotta consider the common factors here….

  

The Surprise
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I for one, got a massive shock with the new boy Kyle today.
He was everywhere: Tackling, taking the ball up, rucking, mauling and backing up.
He had the fitness and stamina of a man a third of his age, a vision that belied his inexperience, and an attitude that many of our 1s and 2s could well take note.
Hopefully we will see a lot more of this Kyle down at Sefton.
And his girlfriend.

 

Prognosis
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Enjoyable day, played in a very good spirit.
Great effort by both Captains to get nearly 30 players on the pitch.

A big thank you to Port Sunlight’ helping players (Headless, Henry and the old guy).
Well done to the referee as well today. We all thought the game was officiated fairly, free flowing with minimal disruption (referee intervention / rule explanations). We hope to have her back in the future.

I felt for young Anthony today, although he showed no remorse, shame or embarrassment after the game, he can ONLY improve. And, we did learn a lot from him. I wouldn’t go to the extreme of bringing Blandie back.

The 3s can take some solace from the fact that we aren’t the worst team in the Club though, after hearing the 1s got a 77-14 tonking at Bolton.
Also, we were consoled by the fact that poor Widnes 3s cried off their game this week. No doubt seriously licking their wounds we inflicted on them last week.

Yours,
The high tackling Campo x

Late Addendum: Sorry, I don’t think that was Kyle who I was talking about earlier, I think it was Daniel Craig.