Lismore 2nd XV vs Stew Mel 3rd XV, 1/9/07

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville team for Saturday's opening league game against Lismore 2nd XV at Inch Park, kick off 3 pm, is:

Players are asked to meet at Inch Park no later than 2.20 pm - well, it's not like we'll be doing a warm up, eh?!

Directions to the ground are here.

Match Report

I think the Lismore captain summed it up best after he'd skidded on his a**e on his way to the showers, proclaiming loudly to our smirking dressing room, "Well, that's the perfect end to a perfect f**king day!"

It was one of those days for Lismore. It started badly for them with no referee, no pitch markings and not enough players to fulfill the fixture. To top it off, we turned up with a full squad of 18, brand new kit and one of our strongest starting lineups for a long time. Finding the pitch had seemed to be the hardest challenge of the day, with many of us driving round and round the park - or through a building site, in the case of myself and Nelly. Mind you, judging by the large tear in the midriff of his shirt, I think getting into our new tight fitting kit was an even bigger challenge for Nelly.

After a team photo which roughly equated to a warm up, Drycroft decided to get some extra stretching in by picking up shards of mangled cider tins from the pitch. Marky P later found some more of the remains of a mutilated Strongbow six-pack at the bottom of a ruck. The obligatory dog ran across the pitch, the makeshift ref led the kick-off and we were off.

Without really playing that well - but with enough quality to see us through - we very easily gunned down Lismore. Tries came with some regularity, and it was quickly decided that whoever scored had to kick their own conversions. Lismore had no answer for the running of Jed and Baz, in particular. At one point we switched Jed to flanker because we felt he was taking the p**s a bit too much. It didn't really stop him, or the glut of scores that carried on throughout the game.

At one point in the second half, with Drycroft taking a 10 minute breather (which didn't slow down the scoring in any way), a group of local teenage girls came over to see what the fuss was about. Their comments ranged from the sublime - "That guy (Ric Clark) in the (scrum)hat looks like a special needs" - to the ridiculous - "Are you professional players?" This didn't deter Drycroft from signing an autograph for them, and they continued to cheerlead and support our players with cries of "Shaft - you're useless" and "Come on Tampon, do something useful". Largely prompted by myself and Drycroft, of course ...

The final whistle came and went, with the scoreline almost irrelevant as a good time had been had by all in the Mighty Threes. A game of rugby in the park under the sun with plenty of tries and some good laughs. It was a pretty perfect day, after all.

Brodie

The rest of Brodie's match photos are here

Stew Mel Stats

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