Seniors - Vets

Will Greenwood stars for the Vets click here

As I am sure you all would have anticipated tomorrow’s game is off – apologies for the delay in letting you all know but Peterborough were clearly hoping for a miracle Sirocco to hit them today. Alas it didn’t happen they have finally called off the game due to a frozen pitch!

Clearly this cold front is having a disastrous effect on our pre tour conditioning but do not panic – we have a fixture next week against Chinnor away. I am confident that we have a warm front moving in next week so there shouldn’t be any risk of that getting called off. The plan will be to meet at Chinnor at 1.15pm or Olney at 12.00.

Can you please let me know if you are available for the Chinnor match and whether you are meeting at the club or going direct. We do need all available players as Chinnor are a good outfit and as of this morning we only had 11 players to go to Peterborough! That is not good enough and I re-iterate my point last week that if we can get 30 available at home to Richmond we should be able to get 18 for away games. Do not just pick the good home games or you will not be selected!

IMPORTANT – March 10 we are at home against ONs and the club are holding a Mexican night. There are going to be competitions between the teams so we need a good turn out from the Occasionals as I don’t think we can just enter Smithy and Si Bonner for all the events. Put the date in the diary as it should be a great night and represent a ‘return to the good old days at the club’!

Your Captain.

On Saturday 23^rd the Occasionals entertained the Richmond Heavies at home. We always knew this would be a very hard fixture as Richmond are obviously a very strong club and their vets team renowned and currently undefeated. We had only ever played them once before and that was last season when the Occasionals travelled to the Athletic Ground with only 12 and a half players (I wasn’t there that day so not sure who or what the half player was!) and not unsurprisingly lost. Bearing this in mind we were determined to get a strong team out for the return match. However, we had such good support on the day that I think we could have put out 2 teams against them! It was certainly nice to see the likes of Bennett, Honky, Smudge all finally turn out for us along with the 2^nd row Development pairing of Mark Lay and Buzzard. 

We started off fairly well and managed to score under the posts in the first 15 minutes, but knew it wasn’t going to be easy as the Heavies contested every loose ball and pushed us around in the scrums. The half ebbed and flowed with some reasonable rugby but also some good cheating in the rucks and mauls. At half time we turned around 12-7 ahead. 

I think it is fair to say that the fact we had to make so many changes to accommodate all our players didn’t help our cause – not because the changes weakened the side (quite the contrary) but more the fact we became quite disjointed as a team. In effect we had to start all over again in winning the one on one battles, whereas the Heavies were able to tweak a few things and come out stronger in the second half. We did manage to shore up the scrum a little with Ben Fennell coming on at prop (much to the moaning of the opposition who all knew him from his Rosslyn Park days), but we seemed to have lost the ability to play as a team and started to fall off tackles. 

In the end the Heavies ran out winners by 28 points to 12 which was a little perhaps a little bit harsh on the home side but they did cap off the game with a marvellous cross field kick from a tap penalty to run in the final score under the posts. 

It was a very good day for the club and the Heavies were a great bunch of guys who played the game in the right spirit. We sent them off after a few beers to go and call in on J9, where I believe they found their 3^rd team partaking in the delights available. We are hoping to squeeze another fixture in against Richmond before the end of the season but we all agreed that the Occasionals vs Heavies match should be a regular home and away fixture form now on. 

Our next game is Peterborough at Home on Saturday 4^th Feb so it will be interesting to see if we get so many available to play again!   

On Wednesday 28^th December the Occasionals turned out to play in the Buckingham Rugby tournament, which is a fundraising event for local Buckingham teams. Due to family commitments we were struggling for numbers but managed to get a couple of ringers in to make up a pretty strong team - Mark Lewis of Harpenden, Heath who plays for Coventry and Rod Keating from Leighton Buzzard. The tournament consisted of 8 teams playing 15 a side for 10 minutes each way. The format was 2 leagues of 4 all playing each other with the 2 best teams going through to play in the final. Our first game was against a pretty strong Buckingham Vets side and having lost the toss we had to play up hill in to the wind with the sun in our eyes. Buckingham scored first but failed to convert their try so we turned round 5 nil down. We knew we were in for a hard game when they kept knocking down our big strike force of Carny and Rich Smith with some big tackles. However, we did manage to cross their line with a few minutes to go and Heath converted magnificently from the touchline to ensure we won 7:5.

Our next game was against a Buckingham XV made up of all those who were not in any of the other teams and I think their average age was in the twenties, so we knew we were up against it. We started off very slowly failing to catch the restart and then giving away a penalty which they took quickly and scored. Again our big centres were knocked down by the opposition so it turned into a hard battle up front with the breakdown being hotly contested. Our tactics of keeping the ball tight with Sharpy and Mark Lewis coming to the fore didn’t win any admirers from the rather partisan crowd but did mean that we played to our strengths and ran out winners by three tries to one.

Next up was the team ‘Dads and Lads’. One of Heath’s Coventry mates, Lewis,  offered to join our team and Lloydy selflessly agreed to sit out the game which was arguably his best decision of the day. We scored 3 tries in the first half with Lewis running the show at scrum half and despite a strong come-back in the second half we managed to hold on as winners and qualify for the final.

In the final we played Old Latins who were a very good young team with some serious pace on the wings. We again played it pretty tight and kept it in the forwards and turned around nil nil despite the pressure we were under. In the second half Heath took a quick tap penalty and managed to cross the line under the posts which put us 7:0 up. Unfortunately they stepped up the pressure and used their pacey backs to go over in the corner. That left us 7:5 up going in to the final few minutes when they managed to break from within their 22 and the right winger crossed our line with 10 seconds to go. Geoff Janes said he was moving that quickly he blinked and missed him – I think the fact he had nearly 40 years on Geoff didn’t help!

So we made it to the final but lost, much to the satisfaction of the home crowd. It was a good day though and I think we all enjoyed it – especially the journey home.

Special thanks to:

Alec – for driving the mini bus, sorting out the shirts etc

Heath and Lewis as I don’t think we would have made it to the final without you

Mark Lewis and Rod Keating for turning out and playing so well

Simon Jay and Olly Hooton – welcome back!

Neil Stanley for supporting us – don’t forget you are playing on tour!

Next game is on Jan 21^st against Richmond Heavies.  

A quick summary of Saturday’s match against ON’s away:

Saturday morning we had a good strong team with at least 4 reserves so that I was able to turn down offers of players from the seconds who had their game cancelled. However, by 12.45 we were down by 4 people and didn’t have a prop due to the following drop outs:

• Dan Wheeler pulled out due to bad back at 11.25
• Ross Mallen pulled out also with a bad back, following my phone call to ask where he was at 12.45 (he forgot to tell me)
• Macca – when phoned pulled out with a bad knee. He thought he had told me
• Si Bonner (aka our driver) – didn’t answer his phone or our texts and I still haven’t heard from him !

Anyway we managed to find a second team prop (Darren) who met us at ONs (I think he assumed he was still playing for the seconds and not a bunch of old farts). The minbus set off at 1.15 and we stopped for a quick pint at the Red Lion in Yardley at 1.25 – bearing in mind we had broken the back of the journey !

Fortunately by the time we got to ONs all those going direct had turned up so we were able to start with 1 sub (Wints) and a pretty full strength side, against a truly veteran ONs side who play together every week. The opposition were pretty big and unfit so our game plan was to move them around the pitch, keeping ball in hand as we were uphill and against a strong wind in the first half. Fletch ran the show at fly half and I can’t remember who scored but we played pretty well and turned around 3 tries up. Near half time ONs made a rather strange decision to kick a penalty rather than pressure us by going for the corner, so we turned around 17:3 at the break. I think they were blowing some!

With the wind and slope in our favour (as well as our natural superior fitness) we were able to run the show pretty well in the second half and ended up winning by about 40 points to 3. Some of the second half highlights were:

• Sharpy taking numerous kick offs and being driven back 30 yards by their big flanker
• Our second team prop asking the opposition to go easy in the scrums as he had work on Monday
• Carny dropping the ball over the line
• Dean scoring a try and then getting white line fever for the rest of the half and thinking he could get over from everywhere
• Kempo completing a full game despite doing a double spinning session at the gym in the morning
• That dreadful piece of play at the end involving Sharpy and Brocky (of which we can never talk about but all of you who were there will know what I mean)
• Dave Hurley showing great support and coming to watch us on crutches (he was joined by Barry as well), but then proceeding to drink a flask of mulled wine and ending up paralytic by the end of the game (and having to go on water for the way home)

We had a good journey back stopping at a number of Red Lions – Dean please pass on our thanks to Starsky for driving in place of Si Bonner.

Following all the drop outs this week I am going to introduce a fining system going forward as follows:

• Anyone who has agreed to play prior but drops out during the week (ie between Monday and Thursday) will be fined £5, which will have to paid before they play again
• Anyone dropping out Friday will be fined £10
• Anyone dropping out on a Saturday will be fined £20
• Anyone who fails to turn up will be £30

The Captain’s decision will be final and he will take into account any mitigating circumstances (eg if the person still turns up to watch because he is injured). All monies raised will go in to the beer kitty for Saturday.

Our next game was due to be against Bletchley on January 14^th, but I have been reliably informed that they have stopped running a Vets team so as it stands we have Richmond at home on the 21^st of Jan. We need a strong team that day so if the Saints play Munster on the Saturday you are not available to go and watch ! We are lucky that Richmond are prepared to play us so we do really need a strong team otherwise we will get duffed up and lose the fixture. In the meantime we are trying to see if we can get a fixture with Buckingham Vets between now and Jan 21^st. I will keep you informed of any progress.

Pete Kemble

Director of Veteran Rugby

Ampthill 3rds

Update for all those who missed our game on 12th November against a pretty strong Ampthill 3rds - we managed to retain our unbeaten run and beat them by about 40 points to 5.

We started strongly and scored a couple of good tries but then fell away a little and allowed Ampthill to come back in to the game through some sloppy tackling and trying to force too many 50:50 passes. However, after tightening up our play in the second half we played much better and there were some great passages of 15 man rugby. Notable highlights:

• Smithy’s tackling and all round commitment
• In the line out the lifters being unable to get Justin off the ground
• Carny’s hat-rick
• Smithy being bumped off a tackle and ending up on his @rse by Ampthill’s answer to Giant Haystacks
• Notty turning out for his first match in 15 years
• Watching the gliding skills of Chris, the young speedy winger (or is that RINGER)
• For the girls, Kempo changing on the sideline as he turned up late (yet again)!

 Everyone got at least a half and I don’t believe we had any injuries, so a successful day.

 As you all know we have back to back fixtures, with ONs away this weekend. We have a full team again but if you haven’t replied  and are available please let me know – the more the merrier. If you have replied but are now injured / unavailable don’t bother replying – I no longer accept drop outs!

 Si Bonner has kindly agreed to drive the mini bus so we are meeting at the club for 12.30 for a 12.45 leave (and a pint in the Red Lion on the way). If you are going direct, please let me know.

 On another note I will be sending out a request to pay the outstanding balance for the tour later today. If anyone wants to come this is your last chance to book as flights are becoming a problem. We managed to pick up another 5 this weekend but could still do with a few players as we have 2 games in 2 days so don’t be shy and sign up.