The Dirty Dozen……

I awoke early Sunday morning to the relentless sound of rain lashing at the window. This was shortly followed by a number of high pitched text alerts predictably signalling the oncoming wave of half hearted lame excuses of absenteeism! What felt like two hundred text messages later and by the time we arrived in Bedminster the growing under 12 membership list had been slashed to only 12! A dozen brave warriors with a togetherness and a steeliness that galvanized the team, set the tone for the day and ultimately led to a performance that surprised, impressed and rewarded the travelling die hard and players alike.

We had already met Broad Plain on the opening weekend of the season, which played out as an entertaining battle of strong willed individuals and ended in a deserved stalemate. However as the sky relented to an almost warm grey colour it became evident that this was going to be a very different affair. I still haven’t quite managed to understand as to how and why (maybe all the rain had washed the potatoes from their auditory canals) but the troops accidentally started listening to the coaches, and further to that actually took all their pre match guidance on to the pitch and translated it into the game. Us Coaches have always been confident that you are capable of playing like this, it’s been pointed out to you guys by many, many different people, us, opposition coaches, parents etc. etc. I had just maybe settled that it would be later rather than sooner but if we are to be brutally honest we really should have been turning out performances like this a year or so ago.

Broad Plain came firing out of the changing rooms and were very much up for the contest, but unfortunately for them we were red hot with our first 10 minute period almost faultless. I don’t want to get carried away but the difference in attitude, selfishness and understanding of roles and responsibilities from previous weeks was quite incredible. The set piece was both guaranteed and solid although to be fair it usually is with the powerful front row of Millward, Gates and Stone a formidable foe. But on this occasion this was also the case for the loose where the forwards fought for and presented clean ball for “The Tiny Tornado” at No.9 which gave him the opportunity to control and direct the game to perfection – thus rewarding him with Most Improved on the day. The ball was distributed at the correct times and was intelligently used by “GangnamDan” at Fly Half, thriving on the flow of opportunities, with the ball finding its way through the three quarters of Thomas and “Bruiser Franklin” on numerous occasions. This in turn led to a truly momentous discovery that those forlorn looking shivering things near the touch line are actually real life teammates called wingers that can even catch run and score trys as well!!!!

Within 2 mins “Woody” had smashed his way over to start the scoring, Capitaino KFC adding the extras. Plain fought back well against the tide to score a great converted try themselves leaving the scores level half way through the first period. But slowly Clevedons new found love of intelligent mature rugby edged its way past the resilient defence with Dan Jinking through and “Ram Raid Rudsta” also scoring and converting their own scores before the break. Plain gathered themselves and hoped that is was their turn to shine, but unusually Clevedon were in no mood to relax and handed out a further punishing 10 mins with “The deadly duo” of Dan and Rudy both striking again with Richy T and Woody converting. Still not content, the final play of the second period was barbarian-esque with the “Pizza Monster” actually swapping hand offs for passing and feeding Matt (the winger) for a touchdown in the corner, Man of the match Mr Munn notching the conversion. As the contest continued the Bedminster boys began to tire of tackling and further chances presented themselves, however Clevedon started to slip into their old habits and selfishness began to take its icy grip over our young heroes! Despite this Rudy grabbed another (now on a hatrick) and The Tornado was justly rewarded for his fantastic day out with his first score of the season after a searing run from deep. This was followed in the final period of the day with “Soccer Softie” Richie being rewarded for a solid display with his customary Try being competently converted by debutant Adam! Come the end it was almost reassuring that Clevedon were really back to their old selves with sour faces, selfishness, back chats, finger pointing and arguments in abundance, however Plain were too far gone to care or take advantage and the final throw of the dice saw Rudsta crash over for an unprecedented 4th try of the day !!!!!!

And so what started as a grey nightmare, ended in beautiful warm sunshine and all things considered some very encouraging rugby to savour. Massive thank-you to all the boys who hauled themselves from their stinking pits to make an appearance in what looked likely to be torrential rain, when so many couldn’t……..or wouldn’t make the trip. Many thanks to Broad Plain who supplied our 13th man in each quarter and whom all helped out. Well done to big Tommy Lee on managing to play on through an injury prone day, at one point coming off the pitch with a broken fingernail !!!!!! A big hand to Adam on his first game in the blue and gold having only just discovered the delights of Rugby Union he fitted in remarkably well. High five also to the football duo who now have an unwelcome break from eggchasing and go back to that other so called sport with the wrong shaped ball. However with the weather turning to less hair gel friendly conditions we will hopefully see a little more of them before Xmas. Richard has always been a classy player but for me witnessing Ty Munn change from boy to man over the past couple of weeks has been superb and he thoroughly deserved his MOTM award even though it seriously could have gone to any one of the “Dirty Dozen”.

Next up Hornets. We’ve not had the pleasure of playing our seaside neighbours for a couple of seasons so a trip into the unknown awaits, when we will find out if lightning can strike twice?