Harrodians bring on a Heat Wave….

Mum has decided to come for lunch so this is a shorter than normal report……..!

At last Siberia gave way to Sardinia…….ok more like Scarborough, but it was still a heck of an improvement!

We had a full squad of 17 by mid Wednesday though still at 1430 on Friday no confirmed fixture as Old Paulines had to pull out, as usual BBC protocol of transparency prevailed and I did not tell the guys the fixture details until about 1400 on Saturday when we were in the changing rooms, (if vets get a sniff of a doubtful fixture they disappear like Rentaghost!)

Thus my immense thanks to our amazing fixtures secretary, Jane Graham, for securing a quality opponent at the last moment and likewise huge thanks to Egham for coming over to Barnes and putting out a ‘young’ wannabe Vets team!

There were a few notable absentees, with Barney, Marek and Jose possibly at Si Currans Wedding and all the Harrodians wish Mrs Curran the very best of luck and moral support for taking on arguably the most comical liability in our ranks!

So 1500 and we took to a perfectly firm pitch and were straight into a fairly fast and physical contest.

For those of you who prefer a polished tactical account of what ensued, please email Dizzy, as I have come to realise that playing fullback is a bit like being No.1 of SPECTRE………..you have complete oversight of proceedings whilst casually stroking yourself, though every so often you directly partake in the action by inflicting a devastating attack on your opponent – hence Dizzy!

Thus my brief version of events saw us dominate the scrums where the Sheds/Marty/Finch machine with outstanding work form Clappy and Brucie had us deliver lots of ‘go forward’ quality ball for the backs to enjoy. We even claimed two push over tries……..Gus and Sean take a bow.
In the lineouts we were not so clinical and fair play to Egham for causing disruption here.
Egham did put up a well contested fight and their back row made us work very hard at the ruck and we simply gave away far too many penalties by being impatient.

In the loose we were frighteningly effective with all the guys linking really well and with us becoming comfortable to offload in the tackle to keep the ball alive, playing our game at pace is what we do well.

What we don’t do as well is turn over ball in the tackle and all too often a maul would ensue to slow the game down – the tackle zone is an area for huge improvement next season.

However, by half time we were winning 24 – 0 and it was obvious the 1s on the adjacent pitch were copying Harrodians strategic game plan as they too were winning 24 – 0! Our mistake was to then copy the 1s and we took our eye off the ball and in Brucies’s case it was because his hair was in the way!

Our composure was rattled by the Egham No 13 who for some reason wanted to fight with the entire team and the ref, who to his credit controlled the game really professionally and had the player removed from the field – though it did take two or three of his team mates a few minutes to do so!
Unfortunately this worked in Eghams favour as they were now seething and came at us for a very well worked try from an overlap. They then did it again with a few loose passes from us leading to the ball to dribble over the line where Brucie was pondering on life, as he had so much hair in the way he could not see the ball and Egham nicked another quick try!

A bit of a Harrodians debating class ensued under the sticks which yours truly brought to an abrupt end!

We needed to play rugby and find our composure.

Which we did and closed the game out by reverting to strong scrumaging and better interlinking and communication – we just go too quite sometimes and it’s an easy one to fix.

The boys did well to regain that composure which is not always easy to do…. and the lesson learned?
Well obvious ……….. never copy the 1s at half time!

A few beers were had in a very buzzy club house scattered with lost drunken ladies - thank you Mr Chairman!
The Harrodians team included:

1 Finch (Skips)
2 Marty
3 Sheds
4 Brucie
5 Duncan
6 Nicky B
7 Clappy
8 Son of Buster !!!

9 Gus
10 Splints
11 Cris Pinni
12 Nick Morgans
13 Barnaby
14 Stads
15 Dizzy

16 Steve Osborne
17 Stu Osborne

Tries;
Morgs, Gus, Sean x1 and Cris Pinni x 2
Cons:
Gus x3….yes read again x3….!!!

Next week we should be at home for either London Japanese or Farnham…
Week after, (20th April) is the Centenary lunch AND
KEY DATE is 27th April where we will play in a little tournament in Cobham before returning to the Club House for our end of season dinner – a date not to be missed!!

Skips x