$ New but Old Recruit

Beijing, Sydney, Dunedin, Kitzbuhel and Northolt !! 

No matter how many numbers you have on your Blackberry...its never enough to get a full team out for Quintin on a wet and windy November afternoon! Thats the moral of the week for Talentfree...

I downloaded my whole address book from my Blackberry to MS Excel....was having a busy half-hour at work!....sliced and diced it, to find who could possibly fill the gaps in the Quintin Professional team squad .....sent out over a thousand emails...spoke to a Kiwi, who was on his way back to The Land of The Long White Boredom...he said "can't play mate..I'm in Tiananmen Square"..I said "Thats disloyalty to the cause"  .......spoke to another...in Dunedin....another 3 had Swine flu....another was skiing in Austria...and that's only the Kiwis!

So we arrived at Northolt with 13 players...all were a bit disenchanted...and complaining about the cold....the woofters! Then, things brightened up...the oppo captain accosted Talentfree and asked for uncontested scrums....Talentfree protested, even though we didn't have a front row.....its always best to protest to get them worried...but I eventually agreed to go uncontested...

....then an onfield captain was elected by unanimous Talentfree vote...Nick was to captain as he was wearing shin-pads and was sporting a flat-cap in the style of Talentfree....how very dare he!!!

Warmup commenced....we decided to have 7 in the pack with the remaining 6 in the backs....the masterplan was set...ready to fail....but it would, of couse, be Nick's fault!

Pookie then arrived to watch...the ponce....we had 4 totty, who were willing to mind his mini-Pookies...but no...he wouldn't play....so we ignored him!

Kick-off took place..the first try took place within 5 minutes..not bad...we held them for a bit....the natural overlap was telling....

......their centres did most of the damage....all Qs played well, except Talentfree who tried to clear the ball at the back of a ruck but dropped it, fortunate not to concede another try...

their little winger stole a hospital pass from the feeble hands of Talentfree and raced 60m for a try....I blame Nick, he threw the pass!

At half-time...we were about 40-0 down....then the Quintin Doctor, Ian Adcock, arrived....the game turned....they had a couple of injuries...so we had one more man than them...and the greedy, greedy, self-centred Adcock scored 3 tries to their 2...We won the second half!

French Alex had played his best game so far...Sammy had played well despite the pimple on his ankle....Josh was bloodied....Old Recruit Zareh, former Armenian scrum-half, played well..put in his tackles and will be back....Mattie defended his heart out and had 3 or 4 good runs up the wing...Jono had a naff moustache....Paddy was concussed but he's hard....Adrian distributed well...Nick had a real captain's performance of great tackling and support....Gordon played 80 and tackled to the last.....Kiwi Rob tackled every man on the pitch including the ref.....The Ref was notably good.....

......and, as you are already aware, Adcock was less than generous with the ball !!! 

We got our points for turning up....those that turned up, enjoyed it....those that didn't, can go to Watford!