Old Paulines 7 – 50 Mayfair Occasionals

Thanks to Suki for the below.

The team started in good spirits on Saturday with a small gaggle meeting at Earlsfield to make its way to zone 5, Thames Ditton. The longer serving players were struggling to remember having beaten OP’s so there was a bit of trepidation around the camp. However we all turned up on time except a few notable exceptions. OJ and the Hitman Hartley were held up leaving Barnes, after graciously arranging to pick up the kit. It felt some what the blind leading the deranged when OJ called to say he had lost the Hitman and his [Micra] in the car park. They then took 40 mins to get out of said car park…

Whilst the rest of the team were at the ground most were throwing the ball around. Harry Santa proceeded to tell the story of how he had discovered he had use of the car of the person he was staying with and chose to drive to the game. The use of the car had come about when the person had asked Harry Santa to ‘turn the car over’. Harry, taking this to have a jaunt through and out of London, looked bemused when we inquired about insurance and explained what turn over meant. Not quite Ferris Bueller’s day off but amusing none the less.

So, once the kit had eventually arrived and we were in good numbers the warm up started. Everyone was in good spirits and the ball was been chucked around with respect, care and glints of flair. Unfortunately those pesky blades of grass managed to scupper Mikes second attempt at playing for the Occies in the warm up as he did something to his foot…again. Fingers crossed Mike for 3rd time lucky. Fear not, as Will Davies was happy to step up to outside centre with Harry manfully and excitedly agreeing to play 12. It was at this point I could see the OP’s backline trembling with fear as the Occies were obviously displaying the largest backline seen in the Combination 2. Jimmy Edge also graced us with his attendance which was a welcome site and also bought along a handy player, Harry playing his second game for the occies and having a huge impact much the same as his first game.

The game started and as were playing up hill against a wind and based on the fact I can’t kick for toffee we were keen to run the ball out as much as possible. Harry was constantly wanting the ball and with his chat all day long I was reminiscent of the days of Mike McBrinn playing outside me, however Harry Santa did not offer up the “constructive criticism” Mike used to.

The first try came from a nice little gap around the fringe of a maul which was then well backed up by OJ to finish off however unfortunately we gave away a soft and disappointing try. This involved a player running through numerous players. If felt that we could/should have nil’ d the OP’s but it was definitely our day. The second came from some strong line out work and a great cut and quick pace from Harry to score from 30m out.

The first half finished 7-12 and then we turned the screw in the second half scoring 6 tries and 4 good conversions including a couple of individual flair tries, some great team runs including 1 straight from a kick off.

It’s fair to say the oppo were a good set of lads. They do feel aggrieved and said after they’d get us in the return fixture. I obviously handled this with tact and replied, “I think not”.

Good

- best we've played for ages. Really fun game to play in, fast-paced, loads of ambition and offloading - shows how difficult we can to be play against when we get some momentum. We completely shut up an oppo that have had some good results in our league. One of those days when everything went well for us.
- defence also impressive (apart from one aberration).
- set piece very impressive including a domination of the scrum - Hitman, Ed (defensively)/Gus (aggressively) and Alex had us marching forwards at every scrum, and put their backline on the back foot all game. In the line outs, Paul / Andy did some great work to disrupt their ball, and our rolling maul went well throughout.
- some unfamiliar combo's in the backs - but Alex / Suki / Harry / Will /Tom went well and ran some nice lines for their back 3.
- Suki played well at 10 with some nicely delayed pops to players running through at pace.
- Harry’s running was fantastic, ran at pace through gaps. His conversions were also brilliant and very much unexpected!!
- OJ had a good open running game, breaking the line regularly and then pinging it wide
- Players not getting dragged into mauls and standing defensively flat putting pressure on the oppo. Our defence won us the game.
- the normal problem at restarts in social rugby is no one calling for the ball - this time round we had up to three people claiming it, with Paul (broken finger and all) knocking them out of the way to catch it.
- game played in good spirit, so credit to the oppo for that.
- debut for Matt Clarke on the right wing. Unluckily for him that that's Suki's weaker passing side (apparently people think I don’t pass??), so he didn't get to touch the ball once. Good to see Jimi's mate Harry back too
- Winning a bottle of port in the raffle as it looked like the oppo planned on pocketing the cash as well as the bottle. Then consuming the bottle relatively quickly between the remaining Occies in the bar.
- The barmaid was brilliant
- Hitting the 50 in an away game

Bad
- Injuries to Will and to Lampard - wish them all the best, and hope that Lamps will play a minute of rugby in the 13/14 season.
- we still need to react and communicate quicker to an oppo that are willing to spread the ball quickly and to take quick penalties. A few times we were slow to get numbers wide, and lucky not to get punished.
- Forwards had a great game generally, but need to improve their work rate around the park, as we got turned over a few too many times.

Funny
- Calvert running off to get the water bottles at a break in play in the 2nd half. Suki asking him with genuine surprise "Calvert, are you playing?"
- Gus in his 'Where's Wally' outfit making friends in the bar afterwards
- A couple of passes straight into touch and a few passes with wild abandonment – we need to stop these
- Suki trying to make multiple nutmegs at 10. Pretty much all of them resulting in them being deflected back and our backtracking desperately
- it taking the Hitmobile 45 mins to get out of Barnes car park before the game.
- the Hitman's attempts to (a) grow a tache in 6 weeks of trying and (b) down a pint of shandy (c) replicate Gordon’s age old tradition of props growling at stages of play.

Scorers – Think this is correct but apologies if it isn’t.
Paul Rein – 2
OJ – 1
Suki – 1
Jonny Cole – 1
Harry Santa – 1
Tom Clarke or Gus – 1
Jimi Edge - 1

MOM – This was a day when everyone put their hand up. Paul was a nuisance everywhere, Gus was strong as ever even though he was playing with man flu, Ed had some cracking rumbles and Calves was strong in defence again. Alex controlled things at the back and Harry was excellent with strong running but the MOM was the Hitman Hartley (pictured). He stayed strong all day and was in the open looking for contact and the scrum was dominant with one scrum resulting in the occies pack marching forward and one of their players coming out of the back before the ball did.