Thanks to Australia, the weather was shite. Which meant even skittery backs looked liked they'd been near someone getting tackled. Twas a particularly muddy afternoon. For spectators too.
But the mud didn't take the gloss off that which has been brewing for a while, Kristen's (girls name) centenary match. He's been talking about it for the last three years to anyone who'll listen, and those who didn't want to listen. 100 games lumbering about awkwardly is a terrific achievement and is very well deserved. He even managed to get a few punches in for good measure. The Father in Law, Missus, Kids and dog all had a good view of it all so that was good.

Cam got us ahead first with a handy wee penalty thanks to a ref left over from the golden days of the 1950's who's penalty arm was never fully extended so it was hard to tell if it was a scrum or an advantage or a penalty. His decisions in all of those areas became ever increasing in dubiousness as the match wore on. Both Sydenham and us were equally perplexed but the law of averages meant Sydenham got the better deal. I've always said, refs don't win matches, but I may have been wrong.

One other thing I may have been wrong about was skittery backs. Today, I think, they out played our forwards by a big margin. And our forwards are big. Tommy had an excellent game, directing play well. Muzz was a bursting through giant as he regularly is. Cam proved up to the task of figuring out if Macca would ever pass him the ball cleanly and both Irishmen on the wings, Mossie and Flannel took it right up into Sydenham's nethers. Flannel doing it slightly more betterer than Mossie, but someone's got to shine. But the shiniest of them all was Rowdy who was everywhere, man. A well deserved MVP.

Not withstanding the backline effort, forwards did well too. Alex and & Tam held up the front row with New Boy Scrag and Old Cove Muncher locking things together. Col got the boots back on for 40 minutes or so. and Kev as always powered from the back.

The second half proved much like the first, except we were slightly closer to winning than the first. That last minute going off the boil will get us every time. However, the effort in the conditions Keith put it was outstanding. Even Tiny got in a last try before heading off to Australia to live.

With the bye we had last week and today's loss, the table will appear a bit skew wiff for a couple of weeks while other teams play out their bye rounds, so it's now time to concentrate on beating Canardlys, Bollocks and Heroes as our next targets.

Oh, lockin needs a write up.

#FUS

Alex: We should take a bus to the seaside
Team: Yay!!!! Bus Bus Bus Bus Bus Bus!!
Management: How we gone pay for this sucka?
Team: Get Muncher to pay. His wife's a gynecologist.

So goes the tale how we took a bus to Sumner for an easy ride. Except the driver didn't know how to get there, or back. With our only adult supervision (Courtney and Petra) leading the way we travelled over to Sumner with good spirits and a good team feeling we were going to win and shake off the last three losses against the Sharks with style.
That was the feeling, truely.

A longer than usual warm up run delivered by fitness and back coach, Ross, gave the boys the best start to the match possible when it finally kicked off; after a minute's silence in memory of Fergie McCORMICK first.
So naturally, Sumner scored first. But not to be outshone by the opposition who wear similar shirts and socks to ours, Muzz stormed through with the ball and equalized magnificently with Cam slotting the first of what would be a 100% conversion rate. New Boy again Flannel dotted down for our second try after weaving and winding his way past one guy after Ross did all the hard work beforehand as proved in this video with unintentioned poor focussing.
Sumner came back soon after to end the half with another try, keeping everything in contention for a hard second half.
It should be noted, that despite all the smiles and the easy manner, the ref was decidedly against us in all the important ways, such as following the rules and not doing things you know you shouldn't be doing. James and Dene both shared a ten minute break under the posts which left us vulnerable, but we defended like demons.
The second half gave us ample time to peccavi and bring up our A game, our Impact Players, and Tiny. The great optical illusion about giants is they appear to be moving at an unfeasibly slow speed, but because to the size of their gait, in actuality, cover more ground than Muzz at a lesbian convention.
Three more great tries lead to a slow down in defence which allowed at the last minute for Sumner to sneak in their third try. Not enough to do any damage except to our pride. As always, Sumner are one of the top 9 teams to play against in the competition and it was as always, one of the top 9 after match functions we'll have this first round. So bravo to Sumner. Shame we could stay and gate crash the wedding at Ferrymead but we had places to go, beer to drink and sapphic sensibilities to convert.
It was good to see long long time Club player, supporter and sponsor Barry NEWFIELD watching his boy play today. And even Doug JACK drove all the way over to watch. We can believe in ourselves, but without sideline support, we are a lesser team, so thank you for watching.

Remember, next week is the bye round for us, so go to training anyway.

It's always tough writing the first up match report of a new season after a long hiatus doing shit that's not rugby related when if truth be told, the non rugby related shit was a lot easier to do but not quite so enjoyable because fuckin' NEW BOYS GALORE!!!
Trouty never bought quality New Boys to the team like this, except for Dick POWER whom many believe was Karl HADDOCK'S identical twin brother which everyone at first thought was lost in one of those in-utero cannibalistic things that happen but that Trouty recognised from the pile in the rubbish as a potential quality player. So to have this many quality New Boys is good. I think. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It'll turn out fine later on I'm sure.

Nine of the starting Fifteen were New Boys and they fit in just nicey thank you. I can now see where we went wrong for the last 40 years. You have to be able to run and pass and catch and kick and not die of exhaustion. Who knew?
First up, Tam. Basically, a steam roller on legs. Dene; beardy and tall and nordic looking enough to scare any anglo-saxon-celt hybrid to death. But tells a good joke to make up for it. Gus made an impression by doing what a flanker is supposed to do. Not get overtly noticed until he's already tackled you and halfway to the tryline with the ball he just stole. Simon quickly told Tom to piss off with the kicking attempts because, let's face it, he's not been practicing over the summer now have you Tom. Too busy trying to woo girls. Jonathan went off early with a sore foot so I'm not sure how good a game he actually had, because Irish, pasty skin, bright sunny day = hard to see. Cam did good at the back of the field running up nicely and stuff. I don't know what skitteries are supposed to do exactly but he seemed like it went well for him.
The big impact players came on in the second half such as Dan who really shouldn't be described as big because is 4 foot still a legal measurement? Tiny Forbes (ironic) lumbered across the park with surprising ease and did what locks do best by taking ball and not sharing with the backs. Ben pushed his magnificent frame around proudly much like Barry Fife told everyone to do in Baz Lurhman's cinematic masterpiece, Strictly Ballroom so that was nice. James did the same but with not quite so much aplomb, but still nicely. So that was also good.

The remaining reserves, such as they were, were not quite as ready for the new season as they told themselves with Andy and Bruce and VG and Muncher (lol) and Piez having brief moments of exercise on the paddock with Chief only coming off after saying he hurt his foot.

Of course, the best thing, after winning, was New Boys scoring on debut. Cheers Cam Macca and Tam. Alex got away with it by playing one game for us last year so not technically his debut, but we'll get him in other ways.

Have I mentioned we won yet? We did and bloody convincingly too, except for that bit near the end where we went off the boil a bit, but it was a hot day.