Match Report for Haringey Rhinos II v Quintin II, Saturday 20th September 2008 at 3pm..
Last week was spent discussing the merits and demerits for cancelling this fixture because….we may get beaten…we didn't want to travel to the deepest east….or we didn't have enough numbers…
However, we continued and we played despite the adversity: I had been at work since 4am and travelled straight to Haringey, Lee had the galloping sh*ts, James couldn't find the way in his Bentley…
Numbers were always going to be tight…:14 had promised to arrive, as of Thursday evening……but by Saturday afternoon: Angry Man was stolen by the Is…..Batthews got lost in the wrong bed again….etc..
Fortunately, 5 new players arrived at Haringey..good going to get new players at home…but 5 away was marvellous!
Starting line-up was something like this, but of course, the modern rugby player plays in many positions in each phase:
1 Shakes
2 Vines
3 Talentless
18 Cockring
5 Luke *
6 Sam Shutt *
7 Cox
8 Dom
9 Lee
10 Terry
11 Sam Leung
12 Dave *
13 James
14 Peter *
15 Alan *…
* Quintin uncapped...
We slowly ventured down to the second team pitch…where we realised we were still one short..so we borrowed a Ginger from the oppo..I knew it was a bad idea…more of which later!
The ref was a highly efficient young bloke ( and a good ref, it turned out)..who was concerned over Gordon taking part in the game…we assured him that we didn't give a toss if Gordon got hurt or died….so the game began……
Initially, we had them running everywhere from a good kick-off from Terry…but this proved short lived…as they counter attacked….the Ginger menace, who had slotted in at fullback, was the last man in defence but he was wearing Dunlop greenflash plimsoles…so slipped on trying to a make a defensive swurve and let them in for a try….
We regrouped….and again we were on top of them with some great work from Lee and Terry in both positional kicking and creative running….but the expected happened again, they counter attacked us…to score another….and another…and another….during which time, the great white hope on the wing : Peter Machen, the new recruit who had found us on the interweb, wandered up to me and said 'I don't what I'm doing here..I think that I have bashed my head'…Stupidly, I said 'I agree, mate..lets call it all off!'…..but he was serious….so we replaced him with the 'original' great white hope: Gordon Ashbury, who slotted perfectly into our outstanding, uncontested pack….Minutes earlier, Alan, a mate of Doms and another newbie, had been playing very little but managed to turn his ankle, whilst wearing astroturf boots……so he was off…
In the ensuing chaos..we conceded more tries…by the end of the first half, we must have been about 35 points down….or so I was told…with some great work by most on the pitch, notably, Dom had tackled like a demon and had some great runs,….. apart from Vines, myself and Shakes…
Second half started with more purpose….Dave, the new Kiwi, got into his running outside of the reshaped backline and scored two brilliant tries….Cockring rediscovered his running prowess of last week and also scored after some professional obstruction by Shakes…..we eventually realised the key to beating them was to run up the middle with Cockring and Vines doing the hard stuff allowing the backline to get some good ball…
At the end, we had won the second half…..and lost overall at 51-19….
Man of the match: Dave….great running…and tries..
Honorable mention : Dom…fabtastic
Girl of the match : Gordon..for agreeing with the ref that he shouldn't play…
Dishonourable mention : Alan…for breaking whilst wearing a pair of girls' shoes...
2nd mention : Talentless..as there was a spare shot of the maltese…
In summation, a number of us had questioned the journey to Haringey… but it was genuinely worth it: we blooded 5 new lads….literally…as Peter ended up in A&E at 3am on Sunday as he was peeing blood..we didn't disgrace ourselves against a supposedly much better opposition…and finally, we sailed past IKEA on the way home without even thinking of stopping!!