Griffins 16 - 8 HKCC

The Maffins were the appetizers on a 4 course all you can trough feast of rugby at HKCC. Now some games we’ve started like Garlic bread this season – crusty on the outside and soft in the middle and basically just too darned French. Others we’ve started like prawn cocktail – we fukking stank like flaps. But then when we get the ingredients right and come up with something like Cream of Mushroom Soup with Parmesan Croutons with cracked black pepper and a swirl of cream we totally rock! Now I’ve noticed some interesting coincidences starting to come through with our games this season – we get good numbers at training and we win the next game. We do a proper warm up with Higgie and we start like a team possessed. Snakehips brings his kicking boots and Love comes to town. When none of the above happens we end up fighting like troopers for 70 minutes and the tales told afterwards are of what might have been.

Saturday was Soup day! In fact it was a veritable soup kitchen. A solid warm up and we tore into them from the start – a pack like ours is rarely bettered for commitment or passion but sometimes we lack cohesion. This time however we were gunning it like we’d been playing together for ages. Now I wanted to give the whole pack 2 points each in the Man of the Season points table (Weasel said no – typical financial controller) because quite frankly we totally outclassed them at the set piece and Hardened the Fuk up at the breakdown. The only slight criticism is that we don’t give our outside halves running options – it was first phase and away all the time which made us a bit predictable – however predictability is one thing – handling the awesome go forward of guys like Notch, Paddy, Shotgun (Winton has a double barreled surname) and Spudgun Bolton was something they just couldn’t do. Now Tony – initially slated in at 12 until Big Daddy Splash Nierhammer injured himself during the warm up – slotted back into his more familiar role of Hooker. He had by far his best ever game in a Valley shirt. He even threw some cr@p line out ball just to highlight how great a game he was having by way of contrast. The guy took the ball in like a player twice his size (Boris) He tackled like a player twice as big (Private – Ryan – come on keep up) and he backed up like a player twice as experienced (Sean Kick A$$ Moves Alexander.) His example typified the efforts of the forward pack – efforts which even saw Arthur “just give peace a chance” Van D get so angry he bared his teeth and ripped someone’s head off and shat down their neck.

I swear Weasel never gets through a day let alone a game without giving away some kind of penalty – however must be a personal record of only two deliberate occasions of lying on the ball after the tackle – I was a very proud man to see this improvement in his game because I know he’s not a cynical player – he’s just getting old…So basically we destroyed their front row and made drive after drive, hit after hit and this culminated in Colin “Notch Johnson from Son of a Beach” getting over for a try after attempting to better Paddy’s record of 3 held up over the lines in one game. He sets a tireless example for all of us. They hit back at us pretty damn hard but as has been the story of our season – we dug in and manned up and repelled valiantly to a man. But finally they got over with a try which was really the result of some pressure we put ourselves under rather than exciting play by them. We carried on and dug deep to drive through phase after phase after phase (well ok that’s an exaggeration – we did 2 phases in a row) and Winton showed why he’s the best prop in this league – hard as fuk he left their pack picking itself up off the floor and supported ably by Sean and Paddy he used his errr low / middlish centre of gravity to cross the line – never has a bryl creamed quaff caused so much destruction – 10-5 to Griffs! His play was met by a typical higher grade reaction “who’s that guy? Can he bench for us?”

In the backs they had some good pacey wingers and a centre who although having qualified to collect his bus pass two years ago was still able to show Salsa Matt how to tackle illegally with a flying shoulder barge. It has to be said that Matt took the tackle graciously and didn’t draw any attention to what happened, picked himself up eventually and hobbled off the pitch mumbling something about having not been in so much pain since he was nearly fatally injured in what is now referred to in hushed tones as “The Great Kite Flying Near Death Experience.” Hugh was like a terrier – so in between licking his nuts and trying to mount Dom’s leg he was all over the pitch, playing at times like Duncan Goodhew wearing a Leicester Tigers shirt at number 7 rather than scrum half but the thing is – if the pack were awesome in all aspects then this guy plays the link role we so desperately lacked with the charlatan who dishonored the shirt last year – JP – yes the same JP who is currently deciding whether or not to get scatter cushions or curtain tie backs – nonce! Snakehips played an absolute blinder – how can someone so seemingly heavy and ponderous in reality be so light on his feet and deft of touch. He reminds me of one of the great Welsh half backs – the ugly one. The Griffs used to have a Barbarian’s style “no kicking” rule – not through any desire to play wide ranging entertaining rugby but because we often leaked tries on counter attacks or the ball got caught in the wind and went back over our heads or simply landed in the road or sea having sailed out on the full. But with this guy in the pocket we have found our very own Latham. I’m giving him the 3 Man of the Season points because he tightened everyone’s sphincters by putting twp penalties over after they’d clawed back to 10-8 to give us the game 16-8. Tom “Notch2” at inside centre marshaled the channel well in defense so that either Salsa or Snakehips had to do most of the tackling – it’s an artform but he’s got it sussed. Out wide fresh from his exile in Le Wilderness Bernie “The Chainsaw” showed the kind of gas and technical ability that only as gas registered plumber can legally claim. Greta to see him beefing up our speed quota – it was a sin that we didn’t put him away more often because he has the wheels to run riot. In fact there’s the only criticism I’d make of the backline play for the day – we just didn’t run onto the ball – to static in the go forward and forcing passes to make up for it as their defence got up on us quickly. The Kaiser was playing in his least favorite position on the park – full back – he was desperately trying to swap with Tony at hooker – risking another broken wrist such was his desire to play anywhere else. However he still covered well and reminded us of days gone by when we had another fullback who liked to kick us into pressure – JP! Robert and Andy worked hard on the wings keeping HKCC’s main threat – their pacey wingers well under control.

Half time saw some constructive coaching points “just head butt him if he continues to do that..” We kept to the same players for the first 10 minutes and again started hard and fast – Spudgun is quickly showing why he would be great to have in your team on a cold rainy day in the UK as the sun took it’s toll on his waiflike physique. To be fair he came back on the pitch towards the end of the game and heat or no heat he nailed some more of them. Ben “the silent Assassin” Ma Jais came on at second row and really helped to hold it all together as Terrence “the leaping Salmon” Ma Jais joined him and became our banker option at first jumper. Mask “Iron Man” Ma Jais came on and took the ball in with real power – even a bit of showboating as he pointed to the sky as if to say what’s that up there and as the defender was thinking WTF? Mask just ran over him pausing momentarily afterwards to wipe his feet. The tale of the second half was really our fitness and defence – we were as relentless in our desire to win this game as we were to drink ourselves stupid at the Oktoberfest afterwards. Woody “Beep Beep” Ma Jais came on to the wing and as in previous games before this showed that there is just no substitute for pace – we’ve never really been blessed with a kick chaser like it – OK so Salun aside because he’s a freak – Woody packs a heck of a lot of punch for someone so slightly built and between him and the Bernmeister and Yip, the back 3 were awesome. And so despite the heat and the self imposed pressure at times this squad showed that it is actually a team – something that I don’t think we could 100% confidently say about last year thanks to les bunkers. Let’s lift it and continue to build – a must win game against DEA before a week off so it’s all to play for and you only have to look at the picture to see how good that beer tastes! Well done everybody! For those of you who don’t know – Guido goes in for his knee operation this week – yet he still made it to the game and cheered you on because he cares so much. Let’s make it worth his while boys!

MOS points
3 Dom
2 Tony
1 Terrence

As I said - the pack were awesome to a man so Tony takes it on behalf of all of you - the boys who scored were superb all day and Terrence made sure that we not only won our ball but competed for and won theirs as well - Ma Jaistastic! But Dom was the Sphinctersettler and deserves the points for that alone!