Sefton RUFC

Dempsey brothers are finally found out.

  

Pre-Game Build Up

-------------------------

Given that all 3 Sefton Men’s Teams have not had a single win between them so far this season, and with many of us still adapting a new way of going to the toilet after the hammering at Widnes 2s last week, it was pretty fair to say that morale was fairly low at Sefton.

I thought I may gain some solace by looking back at some of the Sefton / West Park Match reports over the last 10 years….

It did not make good reading. 7 Reported Matches, all to West Park. Points for West Park: 211, Points Against: 41.

Basically, our games are won by West Park by an average of 35 to 7.

 (The least depressing Match Report was actually a Cry Off that we had one year!).

 

So, I had my work cut out. Keeping the boy’s chins up in the lead up to this game:

‘Should be a close one lads, the league players will want to have a rest after their season’.

‘We’ve got more than 15 players this week, you may even get to have a rest’.

It was hard to give the boys heart, or enthusiasm, but we made it to Friday night without anone crying off.

 

And then, at 07:30am, Saturday morning, we wake to this group text from Brendo:

‘West Park 1s don’t have a game today boys, its gunna be fun’.

God only knows what Brendo had been taking, or what fixtures he was looking at.

Maybe he’d been dreaming of performing his Action Avoidance Act at the highest level?

Suffice to say that West Park 1s did have a game today, and Brendo turned up very sheepishly for a lift at Sefton.

More sheepishly than he normally is.

 

The one positive we took though, was the texted good wishes from our own JP McDonald.

Best wishes texted from JP in Barcelona, which is a good place for him when the 3s are playing.

 

I also thought I’d provide the master stroke of a morale booster, by leaving Goulding back at Sefton without a lift!!

 

   

The Warm Up

-------------------------

We get to West Park pretty handy, as we’d all left Sefton in such haste.

We would have got in some pretty good warm up time, but the West Park 1s were using our half off the pitch to warm up, and Tebbsy was too scared to ask them to move.

We eventually shuffle out of the safety of our change room and start our warm up.

 

All with one eye on the car park...

There’s Matty Williams, hoping that Rossy will eventually turn up. If he doesn’t, Matty will have to prop. Although looking every bit a proper prop, Matty kinda likes it out on the wing.

There’s Campo, praying that Goulding doesn’t turn up. Morale has been good so far, and Campo doesn’t know what Goulding’s wife will be like if she has to drive him to West Park.

There’s Brendo too, but he’s desperate for Goulding to turn up. In this mad world of misfits, it would seem we actually have a Bullying Pecking Order at Sefton. Brendo sees himself above Goulding. Hamling is here today too, but has taking himself out of play.

  

  

The Game

-------------------------

In total, we basically played about 40 minutes of rugby and chatted to the amicable ref for the other 40 minutes.

This is what social rugby is all about.

The nice ref showed the patience of a saint, happily taking the time to explain all the rules, and all the laws.

Perfect conditions for overweight, unfit men.

 

We also worked out that we get more rest time for kicking the ball over the fence.

Poor Blandie’s ‘Clearing Pass’ * went close a few times, but it was always on his weaker side **.

 

There were some pretty big lessons learnt by both teams today, mainly:

Do Not kick the ball into open spaces.

Open spaces are perfect for fast players.

Sefton were lucky enough to have some fast players for a change.

  

* Please refer to the 2s Match Report against Widnes last week:

Sefton had been pegged on their tryline for what seemed an eternity, and it was only after a desperate clearing pass from Blandie, over his tryline, over Matty Williams’ head, over the dead ball line and over the hurricane fencing, that Sefton got a breather. Widnes have erected a memorial plaque in the far corner of their car park where the ball landed.

** ‘Blandie’s got a weaker side?’ I hear you ask. ‘But that would imply he has a stronger side, surely?’.

‘Not necessarily’, I counter. ‘He does have a weaker side. And a much weaker side as well’.

  

  

‘Rugby’ was the Winner

----------------------------

The game was pretty even, you probably could say that the team with a slightly better knowledge of the rules had the edge. (Sefton basically got penalised less than West Park).

And also maybe factor in that our Lawrence is pretty hard to stop when he’s got a bit of space.

   

   

The Dempsey’s: Only their mother would have them

----------------------------------------------

(but not in a Biblical sense)

--------------------------

What can I say?

In what could only be described as the game’s turning point, we see both the Dempsey brothers going off at the same time, with the same injury, to the same leg!!

It must be an inbred ‘brother’ thing? (I have read that twins can suffer the same pain simultaneously, in the same spot, but they were conjoined Siamese twins!?).

Anyway, up till then, Sefton were getting battered. I think we were down 21 nil.

But, as soon as we Dempsey hillbillies were off, we got back in the game.

   

   

The Immovable Object becomes The Unstoppable Force ***

-------------------------

Most of you know Paddy Arnold.

He’s the big cuddly guy that comes down on Saturdays and is the only guy that can properly fill a Sefton 3s Rugby Shirt.

You might even see him on the pitch sometimes, squatting down in a scrum, or standing patiently all game on the 10 metre line, waiting for the next restart.

 

Paddy is our Immovable Object.

He is, what they’d refer to in the old days as, our Book End.

(Unfortunately, the modern game requires movement nowadays, and we aren’t allowed to bring books on the field anymore. ****). 

 

Deep into the second half, we have the very unlikey scenario where Paddy ends up with the ball in his hands.

It could have miraculously bounced to his spot on the 10 metre line, or more likely, someone was not up to speed on some of Sefton’s Golden Rules.

For Paddy, you see, is on the Sefton list of “Those You Shouldn’t Pass To”.

 

For some reason unknown to anybody (or maybe Paddy had noticed what Lawrence had been doing with the ball), we actually see Paddy begin to move in a forward motion.

It is indecipherably slow at first, but soon it is noticeable.

Some of us are stepping backwards to create a better effect.

West Park are stunned, and take about 15 seconds to recover, by which time Paddy has bounced of a few of them and made about 5 yards!!

He is on a roll now, we are now leaning backwards, to give him some downhill momentum.

He is actually looking to go for the tryline!!

He eventually goes down and grounds the ball, only to get that sheepish feeling that it is the quarter line, and not the try line that you have scored upon.

Poor Paddy ambles back to his spot on the 10 metre line. 

  

*** I was going to call this section: ’Paddy’s rampaging 15 metre burst’, but people woiuld think I was making things up!!

**** Unless of course, you are a referee at Widnes last season, and you have to recite every change in rules, and laws, since the turn of the century.

  

  

Kicking Update

-------------------------

How can we have a Kicking Update and not talk about Goulding?

It seems like it is every game that we suffer the vicarious embarrassment of watching Goulding being unable to work out the effects a strong gale has on a lightweight rugby ball.

Maybe, we wonder, Goulding was thrown in the air as a kid, by his dad, in a hurricane?

Suffice to say, I’ll no doubt be cutting and pasting this section into next week’s Match Report.

  

Tebbsy’s Goal Kicking

How is it, you ask, that Lawrence can score 7 tries under the posts, and Sefton’s final score is only 43?

One word, I say, Tebbsy.

One could be fooled into thinking that Tebbsy had been to the Goulding School for ‘How to Shoot the Breeze’, but the answer my friend, was not blowing in the wind. The answer was using the wrong foot.

You’d think, in these modern times, that these youngsters would naturally know if they were right or left footed.

What possessed Tebbsy to attempt the first four conversions with his left foot, before using his right foot for his last 3 (successful) kicks, is beyond me.

What is further beyond me, is why on-field-captain Blandie stuck with Tebbsy.

  

   

Tom’s Chip

Today was meant to be Tom’s LAST GAME OF RUGBY, before he undergo’s some delicate surgery *****.

To be fair, Tom had a pretty decent game.

There probably was never going to be a statue of Tom, on a horse with both front feet in the air, made after today, but maybe a small plaque above the fireplace would do nicely.

A decent game, until it all went to his head.

 

With the scores level, and not much time left, Tom finds himself through the imbreachable West Park line.

He only has the fullback to beat.

He has the leechlike little Lanky to his left, and the untouchable Lawrence to his right.

A no brainer, you might say!

But low, what is this? A chip over the top?

By a forward.

In the lowest league in the land.

(this is something that has never, ever, been witnessed, in my 50 years of playing).

 

The chip, to be fair, isn’t too bad.

Tom chases through, around the gobsmacked fullback.

The chip looks to be coming into his running path.

It is actually landing in his arms.

He only has the try line in front.

And then, it went to his head.

 

The ball is spilled, the match was not won (by him).

Tom is insisting on playing NEXT week, against the whipping boys of Mossley Hill...

 

***** And there I was, thinking that no one reads all those emails in the Junk Folder!?!

  

  

Summation

---------------

After the game, Blandie was in his element as ‘on field captain’.

I knew I wouldn’t be having him on the couch for his post game therapy this week.

He was soaking up this win with relish.

His win.

Blandie: ‘See lads? Did you see it?’

‘When we found rugby, it all came together. We just let rugby take over, and the tries came.’

We were all left wondering why Blandie calls Lawrence, “Rugby”??

Tebbsy was left wondering of the meaning of the phrase, ‘the boot is on the other foot’.

And Campo was wondering if he’d be alive to ever see another Sefton win against West Park.

  

Yours,

King Campo x