Mel Gibson spent years thoughtfully and delicately crafting a body of work that moved from light hearted action movies alongside a ‘South African’ Patsy Kensit through to Oscar bothering Scottish biopics and frankly incomprehensible movies about Aztecs and Jesus, in the process becoming one of Hollywood’s most bankable and credible stars, both as an actor, director and producer. Then he decided to rant on publicly and repeatedly about how he hates the Jews and all they stand for.
Many leading observers have commented that the 2nd XV are in danger of suffering an identical fall from grace, as coming straight off the back of a shock loss to Bridgford in the Cup semi final, they went down fighting to Ashbourne, the team who (especially now) hold all the cards in wrestling top spot in the league away from us.
Word must have been circulating about the NMRFC backline on the second team grapevine, as for the second week in a row the opposition declared that their larger, wider pitch was ‘waterlogged’, but managed to find a suitable postage stamp next door which was playable.
Warm up wasn’t the most comprehensive, as a mixture of confusion about the exact address and the absence of 1/3 of our front row meant that the run through was short, and as everyone kindly agreed to delay the kick off whilst Burrows finished his shopping, picking Oz up after his pedicure and tootled on down to Ashbourne, there was a fair bit of standing around. But, once they had arrived, we were swiftly out onto the pitch, and from the start it was apparent that the backs simply didn’t have the space to make the inroads that perhaps they should be expected to make against the opposition backline.
With a team missing several regular players, consistency was hard to find, and with the conditions not lending themselves to flowing rugby, it soon became apparent that Ashbourne’s 10 man approach was going to be far more effective than it ought to be in other circumstances. To give them their dues, they stuck to the plan well, and with a kicker who largely made touch, a 5 stone, 6 foot 5 beanpole jumping at 2, a well versed catch and drive and as has been already mentioned, an under 14s pitch they managed to dominate much of the early exchanges, dominating territory and managing a huge effort to snatch the lead with a drive over scrum from the 5 metre line. Moderns kept themselves in it with a well taken score from winger Woodward taking the teams in at half time at 5-5.
The second half was summed up by onlooker Parr, who simply said that we tried to make one pass too many, our determination to win the game by going wide too quickly being our downfall. Not that there was any lack of effort, or that we were ever out of the game – Burkey managing to juggle the ball before scoring and Bevis finishing off a good move meant that the game ended with the momentum firmly in our favour as we sought the converted try that would win the game. Alas, it was not to be this week, as once again we perhaps became victims of not switching to plan B quickly enough.
So now the league becomes very much Ashbourne’s to win, rather than ours to lose as the double header matches mean dramatic swings in points which perhaps does not reflect a consistency over the course of the season. The 2s need to take stock and make sure that we win all our remaining, very winnable Pennant fixtures to leave us with as much chance as possible to win the league. Perhaps with injuries and availability really starting to kick in this weekend’s fixture only being a friendly is no bad thing!
Man of the match this week – Sam Burkey – the solid scrummaging that you always expect from him was backed up with some good work around the park which he was rewarded for with a rare try!
DOTD – Burrows - As if I would have said that to get to Ashbourne for a 1.30 kick off, you should leave Nottingham at 12! |