We luff you Dirk. Shame the only female who does is your mum though. Maybe you'll find the right one on the Coast. Anyways, huge congrats from Keith on reaching your sesquicentennial in almost one piece.

I try my best to think only of the game in hand and to not try and run the scenarios through my head about if we win this and someone else loses that and if there isn't a huge points differential then maybe we can get the home semi-final. It's hard not to do when you've put so much effort on the field to get where we are, but ultimately, we can play only one game at a time and concentrate on what we're doing and not on any other team. So, two more competition games to go, and let's play those before we play finals footy.

It seems my psychological efforts to get Cam to kick more than 50% of his conversions has paid off. 10 out of 10 today. Both with and against the wind. It's a shame Dirk is abysmal at kicking as a forward, otherwise the match would have been perfect.

What was perfect was how in pre-match talk, I overheard Burnside saying how they gave Belfast a scare and it rattled them and that they'd do the same to us this week. Yeah, how'd that go for ya? Although it did take us a few moments to get the lay of the land, both forwards and back cam out storming and we had it in the bag from about 20 minutes in. Touch wood.

Scrums were our strong point, even on their put in, which confused me when Burnside would turn down penalties right in front of the posts with the wind behind them to go for a scrum they never seemed to progress from. Maybe the smell of aviation fuel has affected them somewhat.

Our forward pack continues to show it's versatility by being able to swap players from the back of the scrum to front row and every other position in between without compromising ability of control of the situation. It,s been a personal highlight to see such interchangeable skill. Backs as well have been at times forced to switch positions but not always with such success as the forwards. That's just what I've been told. Skitteries are, and always will be, a mystery to me.

First half went along quite well with runs for the line and mauls and shit driving Burnside always onto the back foot. Four good close in tries cemented our first half dominance, like a badger pissing on tree trunks to show his territory.
The second half, we stepped in up a gear; or Burnside lowered their will to play. Either way, we had a bigger and better upper hand and showed them who was boss. I'm unsure if Flannel needed to go so far as to break someone's leg to show he wasn't afraid of a few high tackles. But it happened. And he denied doing it. Just like a Vatican Sex Abuse Inquiry.

The ref stated quite clearly that if we were to continue (14 minutes to go) that both teams needed to agree to change fields. We said "yip", Burnside said "ahhhh nah bro"' Dene said "you bunch of fucking pussies with pussies where your cocks should be" (I may be paraphrasing) so Burnside said " oh ok, but don't hurt us anymore". So we changed to Field 4 and scored more tries because it was shorter than Field 1.

Field 4 is of course where Dirk heeded calls from the sideline to take the final conversion so that he wouldn't be remembered as a try & points scoring loser for the remainder of his career. We all knew what was to come, but hoped for the best anyway.

So we are still second on the table with two strong games to come. Our position in the top four is by no means guaranteed so it's 100% up to the guys on the field now to do the business. Have faith.

Lets get a few stats out of the way. We have now officially beaten all teams played against from Christchurch twice as many times as they've beaten us. We have eclipsed our previous high score held by the 1996 team. Two thirds of today's team scored a try. Two players who played 80 minutes didn't score a try. Rosco's girlfriend is Trout approved.

There was a palpable funky out of whack air about the pre-game stuff that normally occurs. Maybe it was because some of the team thought Friday night's photo session was the game and we unsure of why they were at the club again, or maybe we just had a foregone conclusion attitude about the result to come, or maybe it's because it's Maybelline.
Whatever it was, it translated to an overall technically poor game. Yes, there were some great tries run in from 34 metres out, and some good lineouts etc etc, but dropped passes, forward passes, a litany of penalties, combined with Christchurch's tactic of uncontested scrums left us limpy going through the motions instead of racking up the 160 points we were capable of. A win is a win and I'll take it, but apart from the scoreline, I wasn't overly impressed by anyone.

Except for Dirk. Lol.

Our old friend, Mr Abbot-Vaughan reffed us OKish. His stint down at schoolboy level has improved his game but as always at this level of rugby, the best the CRRA & the CRFU have to offer are channelled to bigger and better games.

For the last couple of years, Webby has threatened his employees with deportation if they don't come and play for us, and many of them have been the proverbial finds of the century, but let's try and make them feel a bit more welcome and help them overcome their natural shyness. They are Keiths afterall. We could also do the same with the rest of the New Boys this year, even the experienced ones. A team divided against itself cannot stand.

Not much more to say about the game. The score and the list of scorers is up there for posterity so that speaks for itself. Be there next week for Dirk's 150th and don't forget the glitter.

So, does 200 games for Ben mean he's twice as good as Dene? Or just willing to hang around dirty sweaty men more? Find out in next week's epic match up between our team and guys who play on the other team.
Homoerotic joking aside, congratulations Ben on 200 games. Still carving up the opposition like a sunday roast.

We decided that there may be a chance we not beat Belfast later on in the round, and that to cement our position on the standings table, we must beat Linwood today. Very easy to say in the sheds before the fact, but not so easy out on the wind swept plains of North Hagley Park Number 1 Field. Linwood knew what we knew which was a win was essential to advance or at the very least, to remain in the table position, and they started as they had planned. Arranged a dodgy ref and came out firing.

Early on, Flannel was denied an easy try (video evidence on file) and Linwood came back with their own 7 pointer. It then became a game of attrition with tit for tat points scoring up until the half time time whistle.

Sounds like a hard game so far. Just ask me about how many head high tackles on Flannel there were and the answer may surprise you. Over 50. I think.
Lots of their boys in the bin and lots more Canardlyesque bleating from their sideline about infringements both real and imagined. Not a good display of refereeing ability. Sometime strict adherence to our own imaginary rulebook can be bad for the game.

It wasn't all doom and gloom however. Our forwards systematically demolished theirs in lineouts, scrums and that thing where lots of forwards hug each other while moving in a big pile towards the try line. Gus & Dqn both got tries from that move. Someone needs to come up with a name for it. Cam slotted 50% of the conversions and got a penalty too ending the half with a 4 point deficit.

Chief and Webby and Alex gave us a good talking to and shit at the break and the second half started with very similar things happening as they did in the first. Lots of head highs, this time from us and still more bleating from the Green & Black sideline. #FUS repeated the try scoring from the first and Cam repeated his conversion and penalty things.

From the players perspective, a good hard hard game; from the spectators perspective, an awful game played under awful pedantry officiating but from a results perspective, one which did the job nicely.

New Boy Jezza wanted me to announce that he will be doing his New Boy shout next week.

After the Canardlys defaced and disrespected the Sargentina Trophy last season, we resolved at the AGM to not play for it again as we did not want to dishonour the memory of John Sargentina further than what Christchurch did by putting it on the line again. So I left the fucker at home expecting our resolve to remain strong. It didn't, and somehow or other the coach announced it was up for grabs. So a must win situation for us then. Easy Peasey.

A couple of players returned from injury to help Dene celebrate his centenary match which was good to have them back in the squad. We need to remain fully fit now for the remainder of the season if we are to capitalise on our momentum. Oh, except for Cam who needed help to walk off the field and was limping later on in the clubrooms like an old person trying to get to the free buffet at his grand daughters wedding before all the samosa's are gone. Ross also needed help getting off the field because of something that happened sometime during the game. I was distracted by something shiney and didn't see it.

When I was a young and happy fellow playing in the front row, I was always told that if after the game people said they didn't see you on the field, it was a sign that you were doing your job well and not doing anything wrong. That's how we played today. Everyone did their job well and for the most part, did nothing wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I love a bit flashy play and watching some exciting swerves and leaps and shit. But we didn't need to resort to that style. Good honest rugby gave us a good honest result and apart from Ross spending 10 in the bin for a bit of biffo, it was a good game. One that the crowd of supporters enjoyed.

One thing I enjoyed was seeing Gus channel Dirk's porn stache. Truly awful, but classic nevertheless.

I've not got too much to say about the game actually. It was good to watch and the result was fair and we're now back in third spot on the table and we drank some beer and made fun of Jezza and Muncher and listened to Alex and Dene's childhood love story and life is good.