by Stewart Henwood
A clear blue sky, but a chill wind, as both teams kitted up out at the Edogawa Rugbyjo ground. It was supposed to have been a game of 15s, but due to a lack of numbers to make a 15s game competitive, it was turned into a joint training session with a game of 10s to follow. This was rather fortunate, as the rain from a few days before had waterlogged the pitch and unbeknown to all on the day, the keepers had decided to prohibit us from using the ground. No worries; we talked them into letting us use the area beside it, which, incidentally, had more grass than mud, which was the exact opposite of the rugby pitch!
Training went well, with Travis, taking the warmups, followed by Galdric taking some ball-passing exercises. We then split into backs and forwards and focused on the respective areas of training. The forwards called over the ref, who was trying to keep warm by running around the paddock, and he kept an eye on the legality of the Scrums and Lineouts. It was a useful training as each team had an ‘opposition’ to train against.
After a short break on the hour, the teams threw on their playing jerseys and we kicked off with 3 x 10 minute ‘halves’ of 10s.
It wasn’t really the situation where you’d keep score, but I did, and we ran in 10 tries to 1. Although, this is a little unfair to All France RFC as we had the numbers to make several changes, and they didn’t. But to their credit, when asked if they wanted a 3rd half, the opposition replied with a resounding “Yes, please.”
Several players made their ‘debut’ for the Cru; the list being Josh DeWalt, Tim McPeak, Tsuyoshi Saimyo, and Dwayne Dortch. Welcome fellas, and I hope you enjoy your time with the CRU, especially the long list of 15s matches we have coming up.
Just as we were finishing up around 2pm, the 2 teams who were booked to play after us, politely asked us if they could use the field that we had marked out beside the pitch because they, too, had turned up not knowing the the rugby pitch was unavailable.
All’s well that ends well, and at the end of the day, I think it turned out to be a rather fruitful exercise. Better than a cancellation, I must say. As has been the recent Cru custom, we all retired to the ‘Chinese Chippy Bar’ for beers, chips and fried chicken, where we happened to meet a young lass having a quiet beer on her own (we soon put paid to that), who expressed an interest in the team and promised to come out to future games. Another assistant manager in the making?… who knows. Anyway, welcome a board Megumi.
Related Post
