With the spectre of wet weather and ground closures behind us (for now) a cold but gloriously fine day dawned and Keith assembled at Bus Driver Park to watch some girls play hockey. If I'm being honest, they were shit at it. So we left disappointed and meandered with no sense of panic or urgency into the changing sheds and got changed and had a bit of a moan at Muncher because why not?
A gentle run about on the field to loosen the limbs and oil up the joints followed by a stern talking to by Alex, Webby & Chief. Pre-game stuff done.

Of course, no important game would be complete without Dick Power's favourite love interest, the Fijian Lady Ref rearing her addled head and making a mess of things right when clarity and precision were needed. But hey ho, I've always said we don't win or lose matches because of a ref. But I may be forced to change my mind about that.
Some truely woeful decisions, particularly the very last decision she made in denying Kev a try because she defiantly stood on the opposite side of the action so as to be unsighted, followed by calling a scrum for us, then calling the game off as we were setting the front row for a push over try to win the match. Robbed we were. But like all rugby games, early mistakes can also determine the final outcome, so let us not put all the blame onto that final 30 seconds.

But back to the beginning. Holy shit! Cam scored a try! He missed his own conversion though by smacking the posts and catching the ball as it bounced back. And that 5-0 score remained for the entire first half. Sydenham pushed hard they always do, but we pushed back just that bit more harder. Tactical kicking didn't always go to plan for both sides of which there was an uncommonly large number of positional kicks. I blame the World Cup for subliminally influencing everybody.
The first half showed ourselves to be the class team we suspected we were, but secretly doubted. Now's the time ti believe that we can get to the final because we showed ourselves that we have the skills and faith needed to do the job. Build on that and we will be there.

Rossco returned to play 60 minute footy which was good to see him at his pacey best, albeit out of position. Flannel did his usual all round impressive performance and Jack did as well. But I suspect that was because he had an audience to impress. Macca did halfbacky things as a halfback does, and Muzz did centrery centre stuff. Scooba also did stuff too. I don't know what backs are supposed to do. Run and score and shit. So that's what they did. Mostly.

The forwards were the highlight for me. Kev storming. Ben propping and running and Tam bowling over everyone in his way. Dirk and Dene and Jezza did lineouty stuff and Alex didn't stop bloody talking. Mostly to the ref asking what the hell was going on.

In the distant past I'm probably the only one who remembers how much we hated playing against Sydenham, mainly because they were slightly dirty and slightly better than us; but this team now for the last few seasons, particularly under Gazza's stewardship, have dropped the slightly dirty and are just slightly better than us. There's really only 4 teams now in Classics who still love the game, respect the other team and want to have some footy inspired fun. The Saracens are one of those teams.
The beers after the game showed that. Well, the few of us who turned up will know how the Inaugural Bealey Challenge Cup got repeatedly filled up and drunk from. Big thanks to Darryl Parks for respecting us both enough to get a bloody nice trophy just for Keith & Sydenham. Which of course, the CRFU Challenge Shield we have to give to Sydenham. Bugger.

With our rugby season in a state of mild disarray, a friendly game against Shirley Colts was arranged after the Assassins withdrew and lost by default because, I don't know, they all went home to mummy and daddy because they had a week off? Anyways, instead of the U19 helping out, we had 4 excellent examples of CBHS 2nd XV showing us that the future of rugby is in good hands. Thanks very much to Ben, Cody, Corban and Gus. We'll have you back any day.

Jack made his return game something awkward. He's already a New Boy but went overseas and became a New Boy all over again. More New Boy beers for us i guess is the result. Oh, he played OK too. But just because he scored doesn't mean he can start slacking off for the rest of the season.
Keeping it celtic, Muzz scored twice to keep us closer to Shirley than if he didn't score which was nice of him. Cam only managed 1 conversion out of three attempts, which was better than the zero conversions from 9 attempts Shirley had. Someone needs a bit of practice.

Even though it was a friendly game, we didn't slacken our efforts by too much. Our experience counted where it mattered, but their speed and agility saw them through the gaps. 19 year olds can do that against 40 year olds. Darwinism. Notwithstanding the result at the end, highlights were Tam and Kev being excellent, with Dirk also being excellent at 10 minutes in the bin.
Flannel and Nic and Cam let themselves express their rugbyness all over the place. Nic also expressed himself behind the posts for 10 too. Balance.

Was good to see Scooba return and Sonny Phil as well. And not just to bulk up the numbers either.

Hopefully next week we can return to normal scheduling and have a competition game for once.