No tags yet.
Sunday morning comes and with it my body remembers the battle of the day before. Eventually after the morning brew kicks in my brain remembers too (queue sitcom style harp music)...
Saturday morning brought the sadly all too common last minute drop outs leaving the mighty 3s a couple of troops short. Mr Denman had done well to get so many players out despite the number of cripp.. injured players at this point in the season. With a challenging game against Newmarket he elected to keep his subs and send us off 2 men light (from what I hear he needed them to butter his hands).
Saffron Walden showed the true spirit of the merit league and donated 2 of their finest to fill our ranks, unfortunately not quite for the positions we were short in. This led to a few of the blue and whites in unfamiliar places at kick off.
Cantabs received the Kick off and our forwards battered our way into and through the green wall in front of us, but a good piece of counter rucking saw Walden take the ball and (as would become a common feature of the afternoon) shipped the ball well through fast hands to speedy backs who rounded our defence to score Walden's 1st of the day. If you wish to read more about Walden's other tries (there were to be 9 more) then see if they have written a report, in short they deserved and worked well for pretty much all of them (there may have been a couple of gifts) fast back and strong running forwards being used well.
Not long after the first try, Sir sustained an injury and could not continue, Walden's 10 had the necessary training so stepped up to the yellow jersey, to his credit one of the fairest Sirs I have played under.
Both the mighty 3s tries were well worked team efforts, the first half try began with a kick to the corner that was well chased by the backs who bundled the Walden last man into touch with the ball. The line out was taken well and the drive was too much for Walden and Justin took the honour of putting the ball down after the line was crossed.
The second half try came from good team pressure giving us one of our last contested scrums (there is apparently a limit to how much propping 1 back row can take, well done to skipper Mr S for lasting so long though) 15m out from Walden's posts, Jim picked and went blind from the back (not sure how far he got as my view was slightly obscured), forwards and backs rucked well with several pick and goes getting us closer and closer to the line, eventually Aaron saw space enough to fit himself through and got himself a well deserved try on his debut.
There were mistakes made by pretty much all of us on the day many missed tackle (maybe a call for some to train a little more!) and some more comical. Justin picking the ball up and the back of a ruck seeing plenty of space blind he seized his chance of glory, and stepped... no charged into touch!
That being said every man in a Blue and white jersey did the 3s proud each deserving a mention
1-Mr S, our captain led from the front, literally stepping up to the prop spot, we didn't lose 1 scrum not a bad record to have (possibly on paper the best prop in Cantabs 100% record)
2-Tim Fitz, there's life in the old dog yet, lovely interception nearly leading to try, body on the line as always, managed to steal the ball at least once on the scrums.
3-Sherwood, the man the legend given the weakness behind him in the scrum kept it going the right way time and time again. Thanks for making it look like I was doing something!
4-Justin, thundering runs, crashing pick and goes, if this man wasn't allergic to training he could be challenging for a spot on the 1s.
5-Tom (me), I was there, I touched the ball a couple of times, I wasn't awful out of my natural habitat.
6-Ryan, another back out of water, not that you could tell. A flanking natural.
7-Doug, if that was you playing at not full fitness, full fitness you must be scary! Tackles tackles everywere.
8-Jim, his pick at the back made the 2nd try. Great tackles probably the only one of us who didn't miss one.
9- Aaron, a great debut from this guy lovely breaks and good hands.
10-Tom, 100% kicking record, good tackles, supports a s%$t football team.
11- Mateus, considering this is his first season of rugby, if he continues to progress at the speed he has I see him playing for the Brazilian national side.
12 & 13, A fine pair of SW lads who were blue and white for 80mins, if they ever felt like a move we would welcome them
14-Bill, someone should probably tell this volleyball player that he is a rugby player! Great runs and tackling.
15- John, a couple of try saving tackles (shame he couldn't manage 9 more).
MoM goes to Justin.
DoD goes to all the guys who dropped out Saturday morning.
So as I stare at the different colours over my body was it worth it... Of course it was, I'm available next week skip!