1 Lee Creaser
2 Vines
3 Talentless
18 Shakes
5 Joe
6 Pookie
7 Darryl
8 Chris Higgins
9 Sam Shutt
10 Lee May
11 Matt Castle
12 Pete *
13 Paddy *
14 French Alex
15 Nick Akers
* Quintin uncapped
You can never have enough northerners in the team, laddy!!
The first merit table fixture of the new season.....so, as expected, the support from the membership was fantastic: 3 Kiwis away at Oktoberfest; Judge Pickles motor racing at Goodwood; 1 Kiwi had broken finger and got lost at Kew Bridge; Tongue Munro having a romantic weekend in Wolverhampton! ; El Presidente visiting his mum in the US...surely, she must be dead by now..he is! ; Dyke has swine-flu...caught from one of his Teddy Boy mates; the list is endless....
We arrived at a sun-drenched Isleworth ground with 13 men...including Talentless, Shakes and a limp Matt Castle.....but, as luck would have it, there were two likely lads from The North, Paddy and Pete, standing outside the changing rooms with no team to play for...so we nabbed them from Isleworth......this reduced my chances of a stress induced heart attack!
Thankfully, we knew we would be contested in the scrums...because on Friday night, I had received a call from Creaser who volunteered to prop....take note, you bunch of wusses!!! he stepped upto the mark and note without him, we would have to start with 14 men if we went uncontested....
So, after our usual warm-up...where we attempted to find a line out jumper....made some hopeless attempts at linking up with the backs....we met the referee, who Shakes insisted was a proper ref....Shakes is, you know, at best semi-visually impaired.....i had seen the guy take off his Isleworthians jersey!!!
The game started.....for the first 20 minutes...we were all over them....Joe made some great runs up the middle......French Alex had a great run making 30 metres to only be called back for a penalty against that numpty Kiwi, Sam Shutt... Matt, despite his groin issue, and Nick defended well.....Sam, Lee, Pete and Paddy linked up marvellously...culminating in 2 tries for Pete, one of them converted by this fine northern lad! (editor's note: Talentless is northern...but not quite so fine!)
Then everything went wrong when Sam tackled the oppo's flyhalf...too hard in their opinion....and the handbags appeared for the next 10 minutes..and sadly, Isleworth gained heart and renewed vigour from this....scored a converted try, let in by Vines!!!! and scored a penalty .....
At half-time, we led 12-10.....
The secoond half, started badly...when their fatty full back sithed through everybody to score a try......
Things did not improve much...I think mainly due to our lack of subs, Isleworth had 3!.....and having to play with Talentless and Pookie for 80 minutes...moral of the story: not all Northerners have talent....yes, Pookie, even you have seen better days...
In the dying minutes of the match a seriously skew-whiff attempt at a drop goal was made by Isleworth....but the ball landed in just the right place for their winger to ground it in front of our fast retreating prop, Creaser, who had overatken our speedsters, Alex and Nick, in retreat!!!
We lost but, again, a scratch team did not shame itself.....last seasomn we lost 47-5 in this fixture....
Final score: Old Isleworthians II 22 - Quintin II 12
man of the match : Pete for scoring all our points....
honourable mention : Paddy....for aiding and abetting Pete
girl of the match : Vines...for letting in a try totally uncontested, because he was tired!
dishonourable mention : Matt Castle...because he's Matt......and there was nobody else to pick on...and he likes the drink, you know.!