Apart from the insanity of playing a rugby tournament in 35 degree heat, the Tokyo Crusaders had a pretty cruisey day, with lots of rugby, no serious injuries and the new Cru tent-fly that went a real treat and should be a regular fixture at future games, seeing as it’s also shower-proof.
18 players and a few supporters turned up to watch the team play 5 games of 10s.
The results were:
1st game vs Gentle Giants – 1 try to 2 ; Loss (try to Naoya)
2nd game vs Gaddems – 2 tries to 1 ; Win (tries to Yorkie and Hiro)
3rd game vs Shinjuku Jack – 0 tries to 2 ; Loss
4th game vs Tokyo Gaijin (Northern Hemisphere) – 0 tries to 1 ; Loss ( 1 yellow card given out to YY for upsetting the ref, who was rather excitable and officious).
During the lunch break, Tooley turned out for the Shuto Committee 15s team vs a team of props picked up from all teams. The committee team won, not surprisingly…..
After lunch the knockout phase started and we were…knocked out…. by :
5th game vs All Jinjan – 0 tries to 2 ; Loss
….which brought our rugby for the day to a sliding halt, and ‘all and sundry’ retired to the tent to lounge around and watch all the other idiots running around trying to catch heatstroke.
Koki, bless him, took off on ‘the team bicycle’ and returned with beers and GarigariKun ice blocks for all. Don’t laugh, the ice blocks were more welcome than the beer at that stage!
Thanks to all for turning out on such an awesomely hot day. Especially the ‘new’ guys who are starting to slot in well to the team.
But, the day has shown us that we are far behind our 1st division opposition teams in fitness and movement around the field. Let’s make use of the Summer to get in shape and be ready to hit the ground running come September.
[flickr_highslide set=”Shuto10s-2013″]
