After the woes of my last rugby outing, it was a relief simply to reach full time and be able to count all my teeth. But the drama. The excitement. Boys' Own stuff, I tell you. This post won't make much sense unless you were there, but it's basically just a diary entry for me.
We turned around at half-time, already a man down to injuries and trailing by four tries, a conversion and a penalty to one try: 25-5. The forwards had been functioning well enough, but the opposition had imported no fewer than six ringers from a couple of leagues higher (a nasty move which their old, tight-head prop disapproved of sufficiently to tell us about), and they were using the extra man well in the loose. Worse, our scrum-half had to retire injured, leaving us reduced to thirteen players and staring down the barrel of a 60-pointer. It did, at least, give the opportunity to use the line "the world will know.. that few.. stood against many" in the half-time talk.
Anyway, for the second week in a row, I found myself at scrum half, which with no numbers wide basically meant that I had to chip-and-chase, pick-and go or offload to a forward at every breakdown. Amazingly, one kick found touch five metres out: cue a catch-and-drive and a rolling maul: in a foolish, gambler's move I called in the winger and a centre, and drove in myself. Amazingly, we wheeled and scored. 25-12. I like playing scrum-half because you get to be involved in every move, which makes you look better. At wing-forward, much of what you do is intentionally buried deep enough or otherwise so obfuscated that the ref can't see it, which means that few other people do, either.
Next, a tap-penalty: these I love, so it was straight at the opposition, who perhaps assumed that a scrum-half would off-load. Down to deck, recycle, nobody holding me so back up again, round the back and pass to a forward hanging off. By now we are five metres out: another rolling maul into which I call the winger, leading their blind-side cover to panic and try and stop a repetition by coming in as well, so I call for the ball, drive over and score a couple of metres wide of the posts. 25-19. Three minutes left.
By now they are in a state, with their imports shouting that they are "not *&^%ing losing to this shower of useless *&^%s". Yet again their kick-off comes to me - only one of their restarts didn't - so I get to run it back at them, then chuck it to a lock (Angus) out of the tackle. Some idiot loses the head and tries a chip and chase which doesn't work, so up we go for a line-out on their 22, which Angus steals, tapping down to me. I go round the tail, less sniping than battering since my left ankle was shot by now, but find the angle anyway and drive up to within a couple of metres, flip the ball up again to the same lock as before, who drives over, ten metres to the right of the posts. Our kicker does the necessary. 25-26. The restart comes to me again, we drive, recycle, and I ask the referee at the base of the ruck how long we have. That's it, he says, so I hoof it out, backwards so that they can't charge down the kick. Game over, we win, cue delight and joy unbounded. With glorious sunshine on a cool, March day and an unlikely win to show for our efforts it was one of those perfect games. You don't get that many of them when compared to filthy February mud and double-figure losses to Gala, but they are a week's worth of joy when they happen.