Was good to see Jack out of hospital and on the way to recovery. Hopefully nothing as serious happens to anyone else.
Reasonable numbers in the sheds before the game. Although a few more will be required before the season gets too much older. Thank you to everyone who has dragged along unwitting friends or strangers they met at Cruz. Every able body helps.

Alex made the fatal mistake of confusing apparent age with skill, or the lack of it, in the pregame pep talk after casually glancing at the Belfast squad. He was looking for anyone with homicidal tendencies though, so the confusion is understandable. Experience told me that the Munchers are never to be viewed as easy and that every precaution, on and off the field should be taken. Those new to the team learnt that from the first few minutes after Belfast ran through us with seeming impunity. Dan, Rosco and Flannel did their best to stop them, but sometimes rugby players running fast can slip through a tackle. Something to work on over the Easter break.

The backs were denied any sort of cohesive balance. Not, I suspect due to lack of ability, but because it was just one of those days and not everyone can read what their team mate is up to intuitively just yet. It will come.
The forwards had the Belfast scrum in a mess and could teach the Crusaders a lot about mauling. We wont talk about the lineouts though. Always a touchy subject no matter who is throwing in or jumping or lifting or supposedly catching the ball.

It seemed like the start of a good strong team is forming. A bit of time together on the field and a few dedicated training sessions followed by some team bonding of the special variety we are known for will see the team gel and come together nicely. No game next week because some five day wake for a long dead Gallilean interrupts the football calendar, but training is still on. Get there.

Officially, as last week's game was abandoned, all of today's scorers scored on debut. Hopefully they were reminded of their duties back at the clubrooms. I'm sorry that my health prevented me from returning their after the game to oversee the delight the non scorers had in their free beer. I hope that was the case anyway.

Four years since we last traveled out to Lyttlelton when they only narrowly beat us. We were hoping to turn that around and give them as taste of Keith medicine. However, numbers were not good to give ourselves a buffer we would have liked to have had in case of injury or unavailability.
From what I saw pregame wise, we were keen, fit and up to the task. Lyttelton appeared a bit old and tired, much like their surroundings.
Dirk rose from the dead. Sarah told Percy he could play and New Boys abounded. It'll take a couple of weeks for me to get used to all the new faces, but it'll be ok on the night.

Percy kicked off for the first time for 2019 and we took it too them hard. A few getting to know you moments, but balls skills and shit came together nice. Pressure up front kept Lyttelton on the back foot and several attempts to cross the line were only narrowly avoided by some good Lyttelton defense.
Johno eventually probed their weakness with enough force to get across and score. Nick didn't quite measure up to his reputation as accuracy king, so we remained at 5-0.

Rosco and Shane out the back had some good runs after getting good ball from the midfielders, with Jack doing the same on his side of the field. Until 21 minutes in and a fair tackled ended up in tragedy.
A very nasty Tibia / Fibia compound fracture of his left leg. His sock was the only thing holding everything together at one point. It was like a train wreck, couldn't look away, but equally horrified by it.

Jack, being the former Royal Marine he is, was calm and stoic throughout the entire ordeal right up until they moved him from the ground to the stretcher and into the ambulance. An entirely deserved scream of pain echoed around the hills. Ketamine helps in those situations I believe.

So as you can expect, the game was abandoned and declared a draw and I am going to be charitable and assume the shock of the event kept everyone away from the clubrooms afterwards. 7 Keiths on opening night is not the start to the season I would have expected.

Keith of course, wish Jack a successful operation and recovery and offer our help in any way we can to make getting back on his feet as quick and painless as possible.

Just when we're over that difficult adjustment period of getting to know new coaching style, new captain, new manager, new players and a new metro committee change in the format (three times), it's the sharp end of the season and things are looking sweet. Until we looked harder and found we were deficient in a few key spots without any cover. Thank god for those totally legal colts boys who definitely played the required number of games for us during the season to qualify. I'll sign an affidavit.

I wasn't there for the pregame in the sheds talking to by whomever does the talking (I never really listen myself) but I assume it was full on, as the lads were out of the sheds, stripped, warming up and ready for some drills 50 minutes before kick off. Not a usual Keith practice.

We kicked off into the sun and surprised everybody by putting ourselves into a position to score almost immediately. But as always Belfast held strong and we couldn't cross the line. All this went on for 15 minutes when Belfast slipped through our defence and scored.
We then stuck to our plan of trying to score for 15 more minutes at which time after a short bursting run, Rossco dotted down (with video to prove it). This put us in the lead where we stayed for just a few minutes until Belfast came back with their own counter try.
These long periods of non try scoring that were the feature of the first half were filled with lineouts with not always accurate throw ins, scrums with lots of pushing etc and lots of running by both forwards and backs to try and score more tries. Sadly, that didn't eventuate.

Our recent tactic of putting a big strong loose forward into the backline to bolster the skitteries worked well again, this time with Kevvy taking that role. It's a shame we were up against a team who knew how to combat it.
The first half ended with me removing myself from the bombast and immaturity of the Belfast Div2 supporters. They're a breeding ground for serial killers. That being said, it was good to see such numbers come out to support their club. Henry also brought his own support band with him, so we weren't alone as strangers in a strange land.

Second half = much better attack, much better defence, much better all round. From both teams.
Which meant no one scored until the last couple of minutes. Us first, which drew us 12 all, then a quick sneaky try by Belfast to claim their spot in next weeks final against Sydenham.
Both teams wanted it, both teams worked for it, both teams deserved it, but only 1 team can claim it. Congratulations to Belfast, but I'll be cheering for Sydenham next week.

Everyone who needs to be thanked and mentions made of will all be done at the Sportsmen of the Year Awards later on, but I would like to say that I had perfect confidence that we would reach our position that we did reach and that no one need feel that they let the team down or didn't contribute. Except Muncher.

Let's acknowledge the Keiths who won awards at the Club Prizegiving last night. Tamahae BROWN as Club MVP and Mossie O'SULLIVAN as Most Improved Player. Well done to you both.

It's easy to forget how easy it is to lose your spot on the table by a shock loss due to complacency. Just ask Sumner. We could have very easily dropped down to 4th spot today, meaning a semi-final vs Sydenham instead of the planned for Belfast. But the 18 players who turned up and played their hearts out turned it around and gave us the result we wanted. So I guess that means the rest of you buggers can actually go to training on Wednesday?

As expected, Flannel suffered head high tackles again. Does he wear a sign around his neck or something? Fortunately he wasn't deranged by the constant barrage of illegal moves, but he does need to milk the after effects a bit more. Christchurch could have had 3 red cards against them instead of just the two (plus two yellow cards).
As they often do, the Canardlys suffered from an 76 minute bout of ill temper and ill discipline. Although they were friendly enough at the pub after the game.

It was inspiring to have #FUS at hooker in the scrums but to have Dan L throw in in the lineouts. Also inspiring to have Dan S at number 8 in the scrums, but at 12/13 in rucks and mauls and stuff.It garnered him a try after all.
Inspiration also came in the form of a life lesson for Alex's boy who learnt that calling the ref names (or whatever he did wrong) is bad and will cost you 10 in the bin.

First half highlight was of course Jack's semi-solo try but the half was dominated by a general lacklustreyness which was hard to define and overcome and resulted in us being down 7-11 at the break.

Alex said it best when he admonished us for not playing to our potential as we were clearly the better team in all aspects of play. It did the trick and we came back that half 5 tries to 1. The only real disappointment was there wasn't many Keiths on the sideline to witness it. Oh, and the 33% of the kicks Macca missed. Beel would have got them. Clarke wouldn't have though. They were right in front with the wind behind.

Obviously the ref played a big part in the proceedings but we cannot let a referee get into our heads. Play our game at our pace and with our style. If we're true to that, we'll overcome any whistle-happy blow hard.

So Round Two is officially over. Semi-Final next Saturday. You know the drill. Turn the fuck up to training and be at the game. And beer will be our friend.

Thanks to the club for the free chips, pies and beers last night. I mean, thanks for letting us pay for them. Yep, pay for them is what I definitely meant.

A trip to Shithole Park is never a pleasant experience, except this time we were slightly perturbed by the condition of the pitch which wasn't it's usual quagmire; so slightly more of a pleasant trip than I first thought.

Something was wrong today. I alluded to it last week, but it seems that we were to focussed on tables and our position in them and who we will be playing in three weeks time that we forgot we were playing a game right here in front of us in 45 minutes time.
Not the good head start needed to topple such a side as the Munchers are.

We started bloody well, with defence and attack both equally as strong as the other, forwards banding together and skitteries holding on to tackles. It was good. Until in the 26th minute Belfast slipped one past the goalie so to speak and were 7 points ahead. Rowdy decided that was the kick up the jacksy he needed to plot a revenge try of his own, which he did unimpeded by any Belfast tackles. Things looked like they were coming back on track, until they didn't. 1st half ended us down 4 tries to 1.

The biggest noticeable thing from that half was we weren't communicating with the Keith standing right next to us. No one calling for the ball, offering support or encouragement. That's not a good method to help win matches.
However, of course, there were good points from the half. We weren't murdered by our brother in law. And we didn't get injured.

Andy got angry at the break, and you know things aren't right when Andy gets angry. He even carried that back to the sheds after the game, so think on your sins if you don't want a repeat of that next week.

Part Deux was better than the 1st 40 minutes, but also much the same. Ben scoring well, and Cam continuing his 100% conversion record, but ultimately us losing the half 3 tries to 1. We didn't quite learn from the mistakes we had just made a few minutes earlier.

One seriously good coaching move was to put Poaunga in the centre where Muzz usually sits. He's got the size and the skill to do nicely there.

It can be easy to criticise and equally easy to heap praise, and at times I may single out a player or two from each perspective in these reports, but it is my firm and committed belief that we are a champion team who with the right mind set can win this whole caboodle. So kia kaha.

Lots to think about at training on Wednesday.