A View of Henley - from the Front Row
Your Correspondent
By Loosehead on 15/08/2003
August 15 2003
"Fat Blokes" and "Sevens". Two phrases that definitely do not belong together - and I was to find this out the hard way! How I let myself be talked into this I do not know. All I know is that Timofie and APB must have had a good line in patter. (They are now looking to sell snow to the Eskimos).
5 weeks ago I was talked in to training for the upcoming 7's event at the Tykes Academy. Every Wednesday evening the coaches would attempt to mould 6 very unfit fat lads into a well oiled rugby machine. HA! It did prove useful as we discovered that NSFG was the fittest and took training rather too seriously, and I was the least fit. Nevertheless we persisted and managed to get some basics sorted before the big day arrived.
Travelling down on the day, a 06.00 clock start was needed to get down to Henley in time, but we made good time and got there for around 09.30 and were one of the first to arrive.
RtR's account of events has basically given the highlights of the rugby that was played on those rock-hard training pitches in blistering heat, so I won't repeat them here. Suffice to say that there were one or two teams that seemed to be overly fit, and once we saw them play, they looked to be overly qualified for the competition as well! It was perfectly clear from the first couple of minutes of our first game that Henley so-called "Hippos" were not going to be doing much losing to us, and so it proved to be. There was a crumb of comfort though in that they looked distinctly unimpressed when we scored our try.
Drunken Wasps were more in our league though, and it was a good match to play in, and a worthy win for us - the whole team were very pleased with that performance! Our 3rd game saw us pitted against "Bristol Wobblies" and there was a distinct lack of Wobbliness about them - in fact there was a distinct lack of Bristol about them too! They turned out to be Durham University, another side who were far and away fitter and better rugby players than we were. Its a shame the two teams most serious about the competition were in our group!
The Semi final of the "plate" competition was for me perhaps our best game. A very nip and tuck game that ebbed and flowed all the way to the final whistle, which was won in the final move of the match from a brilliant heal in the scrum from the very talented hooker [ed: Who was playing hooker in that game? Oh, yes, Loosehead], with interchange between Andy Mac, Olly and John who bruised his way to the line. Next up, Saints.
But before the final was to be played half the Leeds team were suckered in to Exhibition match by a pleading Eek_the_Weeble ("I need four more guys or the exhibition match is off, fellas"). So it was that somehow I found myself on the Henley main pitch with RtR, NSFG and APB along with the main man him self Eek the Weeble. As we had just enough for a team, there was to be no substitutes, which for a Fat Knacker like me was tanatamount to torture - to us fatties 10 minutes of running is dangerous!
After this I could hardly stand so I missed the final, but cheered my Lardy team mates to victory! Particularly of note was the run by Leedsexile who managed a stunning 75m solo effort (we will have to have words about that).