A huge thankyou to everyone that made it yesterday for the London Irish game. At one point we thought that we were not even going to get 14 and then Nathan and Ryan arrived at the same time. Phew! 16 Once again we had to scratch positions for the forwards and we borrowed "volunteers" from the backs to even make 6. We did not have any front row so a conversation with Irish Coach and referee we went for uncontested scrums but had to use up 2 more of our backs to make 8. Thankyou to Alastiar Duncan, Tom Baker and Tom Pringle who ended up as hooker(Tom Baker took the lineout throws), Ryan Canning had to go in as 2nd Row with Tom Moores, Sam Baines at No8, Nathan Parker and Tom Catchpole, who was playing his 1st game of Rugby after only 3 training sessions, both went as Flankers. Ed Brown played at scrum half with Ed Nelson (captain) at Fly. Liam Harkin at inside and Graham Love at outside centres, Ray Wright and Sean Sutton as wingers and Phil Cresswell as Full Back. Tom Brett volunteered to be sub and rehydration technician! The big moment came and we transformed into a team, the brand new shirts unwrapped and proudly pulled on for the 1st time. Ed Nelson was brilliant and keeping everyone focused and upbeat, it was an exciting end to end start with everyone putting in confident tackles, although we lost possesion a lot of the early rucks and mauls. We ran well with the ball and whilst the scrums were uncontested, once the ball was out Ed Brown turned into a Jack Russell and competed for everyball, he persistantly "worried" their No 9 and ended up making some turnovers. We chased everything and eventually Ed Nelson charged down a clearance from Irish which ran over the try line, chase on and Ed won and touched down 5 v 0, everyone now buzzing. Graham stepped up to take a difficult conversion attempt only about 5 meters in from the touch...it went over, brilliant 7 v 0. Irish kept coming and we kept beating them back gaining confidence all the time, eventually after prolonged effort on our line they put a try down which the could not convert and the 1/2 time whistle went 7 v 5 to us. Seniors head coach Barry, had turned up to watch and was impressed with what he saw as the second 1/2 half started with Tom Brett on for Ray. Irish started well and soon had another well worked try which they converted, 7 v 12. Ed rallied the troops and made a tactical change, swapping Liam for Ryan after noticing that Irish did not want to tackle him. With Ryan playing in his prefered inside Centre role, he made several penetrating runs and quickly a well worked backs move had Graham breaking through and a neat side step with only the last defender to beat he scored the 2nd try, he unfortunately could not convert but now level 12 v 12. With about 5 minutes to go a scrum on the 1/2 way line Ed called for the ball and let Ryan go on a run, once the backs had it Sam got into a great position and powered through and scored our 3rd try of the season, Graham calmly converted for 19 v 12. A nervy 2 or 3 minutes followed where the defending was awsome and despite good pressure from Irish the ball eventually went dead after being driven across the touch line. They had won a fantastic victory. All the parents were rightly proud of not only their own sons but of the whole team and Mark and myself were elated, Barry congratulated all. Fantastic driving of the opposition by the forwards, great confident tackling by all, great Full Back work from Phil who collected all the high balls and made some positive penetrating runs and some huge tackles. Everyone put in 110% effort and the win was a result of that effort. I cannot praise you enough for your effort and very well done.