Sefton RUFC

Sat 24 Jan 2026, 14:15

Sefton 3rd XV

10 - 78

Oxton Parkonians 2nd XV

Sefton 3rd XV

Oxton Parkonians 2nd XV

The Numbers
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New Captain “Jesus” Goulding does his magic, getting 15 lads down today.
There’s 2 lads from Collegiate, Mike and Jay, who really look to be our level.
Also, Colin Pascoe is going to play, as he only lives around the corner from Oxton.

The Warm Up
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As usual, we concentrate on introductions, and new Captain “These square blocks WILL go into these round holes” Goulding runs through the team sheet.
Most of us are very pleased to see Blandie in the second row again.

The Match
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A tough one today, up against a highly packed Oxton “2s” side.

There was a lot of time spent in our in goal area, awaiting the Oxton conversion, it was pretty traumatic.

Sefton’s 2 tries actually came from the awesome Luke, who was an Oxton player, but played the second half for Sefton.

Dealing with Devastation, Coping with Loss
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We are all aware of our nervous system’s automatic survival responses, when we are threatened or fearful.
How we manage in abusive situations or react to horrible events.
Today, the Sefton 3s were subjected to a really bad time, and everyone showed their true colours.

Most of us know of Darwin’s 4 “F”s: “Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” behaviours towards abuse, these were apparent to a lot of Sefton players today, but a number of new “F”s came to light as well, helping us survive today’s overwhelming atrocity.

Fight. Ok, there were a few guys that actually showed some bottle today, otherwise it really could have got away from us.
Most notable were, the tough tackling (Man of the Match) loose head Harry Gribbon. The more this guy doesn’t play, the more we miss him.
As well, there was the returning from “injury” Phil Ingham (who knows when we’ll see him again after today’s massacre?), who did a lot of hard work up front, and Collegiate Mike, a guy you’d want to have in the trenches with you – “Give up” is not in his limited vocabulary.

Flight. It wasn’t so much a player who ‘flew’ today, more the rugby match ball.
Tom James managed to take advantage of the strong cross wind, and, with almost EVERY restart, set the ball flying straight over the touchline for an automatic Oxton scrum on the halfway line. He was not a favourite with the Sefton forwards.
One of Tom’s many restarts didn’t fly straight out, but inexplicably targeted the 20 stone bald Oxton winger!
“WTF?”, screamed the Sefton 3s in unison, as the 20 stone bald Oxton winger performed his 10 second 100 yard unimpeded direct dash to the tryline.
Experienced campaigners Brian and Campo hadn’t even bothered moving from the restart, patiently waiting for the next restart in about 1 minute.
As well, Tom James displayed Schrodinger’s 5^th “F” of Trauma, “Frustrate”, with his constant winding up of the opposition, and particular goading of the young 9. Basically, he made Oxton angrier, and more dominating.

Goulding worked his own take on “Flight”, by seeking to “Flee” the Oxton defenders whenever he got the ball. This would involve crossing and shepherding behind the Sefton forwards until he found one to hide behind and start a maul. His dad was down to watch the game today, but left before the game ended. We were going to ask him why you’d call your son, ‘Fucking Goulding’.

Freeze. With the bitterly cold wind howling across the pitch, and new Captain “I will play myself where I want” Goulding at inside centre, the Sefton outside backs were not seeing any ball today.
Poor Louis Campbell, Collegiate Jay, Duncan and the very Reverend Ste Casey almost caught hyperthermia by just standing around doing nothing, watching Goulding (who could NEVER catch hyperthermia) constantly taking the ball up on his own.

Credit to Duncan though, showing some imagination to “Fabricate” a story about a lost boot lace, allowing him to withdraw from the fray for about 20 minutes seeking a replacement. (Duncan’s special boots have Velcro, so he didn’t “Fool” some of us).

Fawn. Brian Gardner was in his element on his own here today. He actually has ‘Fawnicator’ on his CV.
At his age, it was always gunna be a struggle today, and Brian had actually managed to ‘contain most of his facilities’ in the first half.
At half time, the (now) 14 man Sefton team were presented with an olive branch from Oxton. A bruising bullocking brilliant 20 stone olive branch called Carl. He said he could play anywhere.

Straight away, Brian went in for some grooming: “Hi Mr Carl sir, what a lovely thick girth you have. I bet you are absolutely brilliant at prop. Please can you play tighthead prop for me? Pretty please?”.
The blushing Carl obliged, allowing Brian to “Fall back” to the hidden anonymity of the second row.

(In the bar later, Brian was seen cuddling up to Carl, resting his head on Carl’s beautiful barrel stomach, asking if he’d like to play “mummy’s and daddy’s”. It was rather sweet).

Further Behaviours
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Both Anthony Hawksford and Kyle Lewis were well versed with Freud’s 6^th “F” of Trauma, “Feign”, knowing an “injury” would allow them to escape the bullying of the Oxtonian “2s”.
Anthony showed an amazing imagination (and dexterity), to knee himself in the back of the head, just short of half time, and Kyle managed to pull his own groin, on the pitch, even when his girlfriend was handy on the sidelines.
To be fair, Kyle did stay on the pitch for the whole game. He is new to Sefton and perhaps not so easily broken down.
Yet.

Campo epitomised Pavlov’s 7^th “F” of Trauma, “Flop”. After constantly getting bounced off in his attempted tackles, Campo found it more effective by flopping down in front of the marauding Oxton attackers, and on one occasion, managed to trip up their aging prop with his chin.

Brendo bravely aspired to Homer’s 8^th “F” of Trauma, “Fade”, by “stepping back into the bushes” and becoming invisible.
Although, tbf, he did re-appear occasionally for a Sefton lineout, and attempt “Flight”, getting lifted at 2 (and winning ALL of our throws!). 

Blandie showed his intellect by resorting to Kinsey’s 9^th “F” of Trauma, “Fling”. Having fantasies of being a quarter back in this week’s Super Bowl, such was the forwardness of his pass to the bullocking Carl. Even the ref had to blow a scrum for this 5 metre forward pass, “sorry Sefton, but even the Assessor in the car park would’ve seen that one!”.

Where’s Pascoe? You may ask.
Colin (who is very close to Oxton), must have seen the writing on the wall, well before kick off, and adapted Lucan’s 10^th “F” of Trauma, “Forfeit”. This is becoming a popular method of dealing with Sefton’s weekly batterings, and Colin probably feels no shame * in joining the many other Sefton ‘players’ who are regularly not playing.
We live in the hope that Colin will turn up again someday.

* Next week I will take the Sefton team through the ‘Compass of Shame’.

Prognosis
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So, all in all, it was a good day for the 3s, each of us finding out a little bit about ourselves, in the face of impending disaster.
We learnt that there are many ways of reacting to unpleasant situations, and now have the 15 behavioural “F”s handy for future use.

Perhaps the best advice for dealing with trauma, comes from our very own Dr Campo, who prescribes the 16^th “F” of Trauma = “Forget”.
This is easily achieved, with the aid of Sefton’s own “Memory Eraser” (on tap at the Club).
And you’ll be supporting the Club as well. Everyone wins.
(It worked well for the First team last week, after their 77 point eye opener at Bolton.)

Have 6 days of rest and we’ll see you next week.