Sefton RUFC

Sat 18 Sep 2021

Sefton 2nd XV

14 - 43

Trafford MV 2nd XV

Sefton 2nd XV

Trafford MV 2nd XV

Who is the new captain of the second team you may ask? Like Emma Raducanu he seems to have come from obscurity, with no one knowing who he was last year (despite my attempts to highlight this maverick), he has suddenly been thrust into the limelight. If you look back to the beginning of September, Sean Muirhead didn’t have a care in the world. Happily going through his mundane life, running through wildflower meadows and paddling bare foot in streams, or whatever Sean does in his free time. That was until our disgraceful absent captain Jack Beckwith dropped him right in it, and put his name down for captaincy. Everyone was surprised, not least poor Sean who stared in disbelief, unable to stop the vote going through.

To his credit he has grasped the nettle in both hands, and refused to let go. Some may say Sean has had an easy transition into captaincy with the first game against Wigan being postponed, and no game for the third team on Saturday, he had enough cannon fodder to throw in front of the machine gun nests.

This didn’t stop the tears from flowing though, as a number of props came into the team and were then ruthlessly snatched away. It seems that props at the moment are coveted, able to demand numerous favours for their services.

Saturday came too quickly for Sean, but in the end I couldn’t bear to see him cry anymore, and offered to prop, putting young Luke Townsend into hooker.

One thing Sean did do was prepare us for battle with a rousing team talk. “There are three things that we need to focus on in this match” he says. Brilliant, three things, bite size, nice and simple, bullet pointed for the forwards like Mark Dobie, that’s all the lads need, what a genius. Unfortunately, he got carried away, and after the fourth and fifth bullet point, I could see that the lads attention span was wading. He was starting to sound like Campo the week before, who struggled to remember his name, and where he was playing. Luckily the ref blew his whistle to indicate he wanted to start the game, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

--- The game ---

It wasn’t the best start. Five minutes into the game and Grant Leary was off. Not from a yellow card which is what we all thought was the likeliest outcome (I had him down for a 14^th minute card), but from a nasty cut above his eye. Pete Johnson had to come on a bit sooner than he probably wanted to.

Trafford were well organised, and had a strong running number eight, and a handy stand-off, but other than that the teams were fairly even. The scrum, though a little bit messy, did not go backwards, and despite losing Leary, our only lineout jumper, JP Ellis did well against their much taller lineout jumpers. What let Sefton down was dropped ball and missed tackles, which cost them early in the match with Trafford scoring three un-replied tries. Some of these should’ve been avoided, with Sefton at the time on the oppositions try line, and allowing an easy escape.

Sefton had their chances, a lineout five metres out was caught and driven on with hardly any resistance, and they were quickly over Trafford’s try line, only for the ball to be spilled forward by Mark Dobie before he could ground it. Now I must stipulate that Dobie fiercely denies this, saying that someone took the ball from him, and they knocked it on. However, I am yet to see any evidence of this mysterious ball stealer. Despite this, Sefton did eventually have success, a quickly taken penalty allowed JP Ellis to barge his way through to score for Sefton, which was converted by Gorgeous.

The second half was much the same, but with more kicking. Jamie Luck (still on, had him down for a 25th minute card) insisting on kicking the ball back to the opposition at every opportunity. Colin Pascoe came on at back row, but immediately had to go to stand-off due to Gorgeous having a dodgy knee. Pascoe’s strong running caused Trafford a lot of problems, breaking the gain line a number of times, but what Pascoe will best be known for is his kick for touch. He has been out of the game for quite a few years now, but even back then the aim of a penalty kick is to get the ball further up the pitch, not five metre further back from where you kicked it.

Sefton again spent large amounts of time close to the opposition line only to lose possession and allow Trafford to break out on the counter-attack. Despite a number of chances Sefton only managed to turn it into points once, with a great running line by Dan Harper who crashed over under the posts. With Gorgeous off, kicking duties went to Jamie Luck, who was obviously keen to get the game started again, and quickly drop kicked the ball between the posts. We were glad that Jamie could see that we all wished to crack on and get some more tackling practice in.

Towards the end Trafford started to run away with it, with some swift handling skills which made it hard for Sefton to defend. The only consolation was listening to our captain say we need to try harder, but in a different way than the last time under our posts. This is where experience comes in, with Campo well versed in motivation speeches behind his own posts, he could maybe pass on some goal line wisdom. Perhaps an old classic ‘make them score out wide, so they struggle with the conversion’, a personal favourite.

It was good to get the first game up and running, with some positive play at times, which hopefully we will be able to expand over the next few games. Good performances by JP Ellis and Colin Pascoe, but ‘Man of the Match’ went to Dan Harper who ran some strong direct lines in the centre.

As for our captain, Sean Muirhead, the prognosis didn’t look good, looking like he was going into deep depression after the match. Someone had already taken his belt and shoe laces away from him, when they saw him in the corner with his head in his hands, shaking. The number to the Samaritans was slipped into his pocket, just in case. Luckily, Sean gets a reprieve next week, due to the seconds not having a game.

As a member of the prop union now, I am now looking forward to my new perks, a crisply ironed shirt, champagne in my own personal changing room, maybe a foot massage from the captain. This, I will hopefully receive when I don’t feel like a grizzly bear has had a close and intimate moment with me.