Having seen training sessions this last week turn into impromptu sledging sessions, the decision was taken to cancel this fixture. Belgrave had other ideas though, and contacted the league on Friday afternoon offering a fixture at theirs instead of ours. The league then informed us that if we were to not fulfil the fixture we would be deducted 6,000 points, fined £10,000,000 and forced to play football for the rest of our lives as punishment (some artistic licence may have been used here).
This is where Andy Fitton (hereby referred to as the Grinch who ruined the penultimate weekend before Christmas™) stepped into the fray. With Nath stuck doing his Friday big shop at Morrisions (other supermarkets are available), the Grinch took a little too much pleasure in phoning round ‘the lads’ and yanking them away from putting up decorations and baking mince pies with their loving families… by 9pm 18 brave souls had committed and we were off to Leicester to do battle. If we thought we were underprepared, it is worth noting that the majority of the Belgrave squad were not made aware of the fixture until 9am on Saturday morning, which begs the question who moved heaven and earth to get the fixture to go ahead? We’re pointing no fingers, the Grinch who ruined the penultimate weekend before Christmas™ …!
It turns out that snow in Belgrave wasn’t white, fluffy frozen water, but instead much more of the consistency of dog excrement, and their pitch had blanket coverage. With a warm up that may have looked like dynamic stretching but was in fact an attempt to swerve poo, groundskeeper Willy was called for and did a circuit with a pooper scooper so that the match could start.
First to fall foul of the referee was Young Max Trimble. Not for his ridonkulous £600 new boots, but for the fact that the RFU had issued a directive saying that full length leggings are not to be worn during a match. Off trotted Trimble to the changing rooms, that was until Jade, with a look of almost bloodlust in her eyes threw him to the floor and insisted ‘for the sake of the team’ that he remove them pitch side…
With Mods happy to supply a constant string of early Christmas penalty gifts, Belgrave had plenty of opportunity to get the ball into the corner and utilise their well versed rolling maul, which eventually saw them cross to open the scoring. Wake up call administered, Mods set about playing some open rugby in order to expose the mismatch in quality and pace in the backlines. This we duly did, and after maintaining some good field position, Gubb tore the outside defence apart, gave the fullback a hefty face-five and popped up to Woodward to open the scoring.
However, the rest of the game was punctuated by a torrent of penalties which stopped any constructive play from Moderns, and gave Belgrave all the field position that they needed to do what they did best. They took the lead and maintained it for the rest of the first half, although Mods kept the scoreboard ticking over with a couple of penalties and were well in contention at the whistle.
The second half saw the same pattern, a constant stream of penalties (we are not bitter – the majority were deserved, some however were baffling to all sides) never allowing Moderns to generate consistent possession, and the massive territorial advantage led to Belgrave pulling away and ultimately getting the score to win. With Moderns throwing caution to the wind the game opened up with Trimble showing good pace to go round the outside for a consolation score in the corner.
Ultimately a frustrating result against a team that were on another day were really there for the taking.
Big thanks must go out to everyone who dropped their plans at the 11th hour to turn out, and this week’s man of the match was Mike Gubb, who ran hard and well all day.
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