Griffins 48 - 0 HKFC Bulls

Saturday, 4th Febuary 2012 was to be a momentous day for all those under the Griffin fold, past and present members, for we had a score to settle against our sworn enemy and a reputation to uphold, HKFC Bulls @ HKFC. It was to be on this day that the Mighty Griffs would storm into Club (30 strong, maybe more) drink there beer and feeling in the generous mood we were offered up a ‘Masterclass in Rugby’ to the Bulls who had dared to dream the night before of taking the pitch against us, this was their most crucial mistake.

Griffs were fired up, with everyone on time after a reminder from Tony ‘the Tank Commander’ Carango that “Guys (arms out on front, head back expression)when we say boots on @ 12.30, we mean boots on, no fu#king around flirting with you mates or talking about which girls you did, or didn’t do the biz with the night before”. A lesson well learnt, ‘should of, would of, could of’, the last words of a fool and fools we were not. So every Griff ready and raring to go, eyes on the prize set into action to lay down the foundations for a glorious display of Griffs rugby at its finest, for all to see and replicate and as if that wasn’t enough, it was on their own ground (albeit a very nice one). In keeping with almost all games we’ve played, in the early morning it starts out cold and yet it seems 10 minutes before kick off the clouds dissipate, the sun shines through and from nowhere we were to play a game in 20 degree heat. The obvious victims got sunburn, Bald Dom ‘ I might of broke my neck but I bleed red and black, check out my personalized Valley trainers’ Rogers and Tom ‘keen to be heard before the game talk’ Recaldin. Armed with unmatchable and unparallel hunger for victory that Griffs leaked from every vein in their body and with more heart than a Lion on a 100 Ephedrine pills, the slaying commenced!

With a few injuries to the team, Griffs personified that we are more than individual players but a bloody solid unit as one. Ginger Tom ‘Tin Tin to rescue my kicking game’ Duffy was settling in from a knock to his knee, having been to a J Forest Sunday Funday with Father Craig ‘2 girls aren’t enough for me & ill pay you 500 for my ex girlfriend’ McKenzie ended up grazing his knees whilst on all fours with his ‘manlady’. Winton “I’m never on time, only fashionably late” D St JP rocked up as usual late, obviously hadn’t been at training on Thursday to heed Carango’s warning. With no Waffle ‘Valley Valley Valley’ I’m not French I’m Belgian hooking, Boris “how did those lederhosen EVER fit you’ The Hammer undertook to munch on any club player stupid enough to hook against him. By association Boris’ hooking skills must be and were immense on Saturday from all the practice he gets in Wanchai, fishing with his rod and hook. 2 mins in and the Bulls had given away a penalty for doing what they do best, flaunting the rules and trying to pretend they did nothing of the sort. First kick of the day for Tin Tin and on a usual day would be slotted through with his eyes closed, however with a gamy knee, the footing got the better of him and secretly he must of thought, rather take the first points over their line than to make it too easy for ourselves and slot penalties over. A tactic he was obviously deploying ,which became more and more obvious as the game went on, as an impeccable kicker normally, could not close a New Makati girl with a pocket full of cash that day.

In any case the scoreboard wasn’t left waiting for long before it rather begrudgingly flashed up, Valley Griffins 5 – HKFC Bulls 0.

With a solid pick and drive up the middle from our menacing pack and a silky link up with the backs, Freddie ‘I’m all over these guys and can get a pass away in any situation Jacobus’ Burger, set up Woody for his second favorite ‘time’ behind sexy time, Try time. For some reason their 10 didn’t quiet learn from his mistakes, when he kept putting the re start down Ash “I’m a machine never tired must be on something” Matuschka to either twinkle toe two step round their lumps or take the direct route and smash them up the middle. Either way Ash ‘I run for fun’ was all over the park as we’ve come to expect chasing down kick throughs from the half way line and nearly touching down with me on their line. Consolation prize Ash swiped out their chaser in any case, most deserved. With Tony ‘I don’t mean to be a di#k about it but I REALLY want to smash these guys into the ground’ Carango charging up the back row with Captain Dom ‘ I crash through forwards and hand off in their face coz I can’ Chatterton, they were running the forwards around the park like nobody’s business, men on a mission. Brent ‘Check out my outrageous leggings and sparkly luminous boots I must have a good game if I’m attracting this much attention’ Kotze smashing into their forwards, they just didn’t want to know. Competing at every breakdown, turning scrums and back up play worthy of a HK 7s late entry side, football club could not contain what was to follow. With a sturdy scrum wheeled round in our favor and a zigzagging Blonde Bombshell on the loose, 1 player pasted became 2, then 3, clearly Dom ‘ there’s no chance you stopping me from here’ Chatterton, realizing how close to the line he was put in that last big push to dive over for another Griffs try. Score now, somewhere in the 17 region and of course a big fat NIL to football club. Winton ‘I’m happy to run at their players and if they don’t move, well ill just move them or take them with me” D St JP, stormed up the middle off the back of a well guarded ruck, handed off a few not so keen club forwards, only to find a few more wanting to come out and play, only they wanted to tickle rather than tackle and so WD STJP gained some 10-20 meters or so carrying what looked like 3 or 4 of their players, before hitting the deck and recycling for another Valley assault on their line, which resulted in a great pairing and another try. Half time whistle went, having built a solid and comfortable lead, Griffs were puffing and rather pink faced, ‘thank goodness’, was clearly the call here, as we got so excited and carried away scoring tries that no one had thought embarrassing football club could be so tiring.

With a conversation with Freddie ‘I’m puffing out my a#se too’ Burger we realized we needed to slow the game down now before exhausting ourselves. I for one, couldn’t tell you what was said at the half time break/talk as I had my head in a toilet bowl, twice in as many weekends. Hoping for better things next weekend. Guessing something along the lines of 1) how on earth did we lose to them the first time round, 2) they haven’t been humiliated enough, not even close and 3) second half 0-0, THEY DO NOT CROSS OUR LINE. In fact I don’t believe they even made it into our 22 the entire game. They might have made our half once or twice with feeble kicks, but nothing we didn’t catch and run right back at them, usually leading to running sideways around 4-5 players and popping off to Woody ‘I like to run fast’ King for his second try of the game. With me out of action but keen to get back on after spewing, Arrann ‘only thing better than watching Griffs beat HKFC by so much, would be playing but I’m injured/retired’ Young fielded in Weasel ‘ it’s more fun to run with your head first, shows commitment’, who with more plastic surgery under his belt than a wealthy Thai ladyboy, put his head in the game, and by head I mean head first into every tackle and charge. In for what looked like a try, just got jerked (not for the first time) by a football club player who came late. Next Valley Griffs, like most of the game were in club’s half, camped just outside the 22 and one of the Bulls players who has never been seen before in a Bulls game, was clearly offside. Slightly put off by this, Tony ‘only way to come off from tearing them apart is to be knocked out’ Carango suffered a cheap shot to the head after going down on one of their players. The player in question was summarily dismissed for being a total ‘C#nt’ and as Carango came off on his feet, the ref said to me, it would be good if he didn’t come back on, pointing to Carango, obviously not knowing this would be easier said than done. Ironically enough, given their sour grapes not only did that guy get sent off from our game, but lined up and played the game after for the football club game against the Mighty Tangs. They do have some nerve.
Penalty given in the bottom left corner of the pitch and with the kicking prowess of Mr. Duffy, Griffs decided for the grab and smash route, going for the most direct route possible, a slight kick of the ball by Keegs ‘I love a box kick I do’ Keegan and a pass to Toby ‘ the Rhino beast man’ Rolfe that resulted in bouncing almost all those stupid enough to take a stand in from of this oncoming train, to touch down for Try time. Special mentioned to Father Craig ‘did you really used to be a Pastor in Canada’ Mckenzie who not only played out of his skin, busted his shoulder in the game, played with a broken finger and was around the park all day, also scored a his FIRST ever Griffins try against the best possible team he could choose to score the debut against. No doubt with that injury, there will be a few Sunday Funday girls missing out on Craig’s charms. Fear not Harvard is waiting in the wings and ready to not only take his fair share but fill Craig’s void too. Tom ‘all in a day’s stride smashing football club centers’ Harvard played to win, smashed a few bald heads and came out scoring to add insult to injury that their 2 big lumps in the centers got smashed each time by our units, Harvard and Recon Tom. With a shaky start and a few wayward passes Recon ‘loves a bit of sunburn on a day that starts out cold, what are they going to think on Monday’ Tom played a stormer with hands to rival that of Freddie ‘Safe hands rock steady’ Burger. With Dave ‘aka Wintons dad, I now run 30 meter runs and confess yoga has been my solace’ Ashton Howorth came on to smash it up the middle and when they were praying the embarrassment would stop was relentless in sending out wide passes for us to stretch them wide or crash through the middle like the steam train we are. What with Dave and Ryan ‘the beast I’m fired up for this, keen to end any football club player between him and the ball but still such a nice guy’ Troupe we showed no mercy or signs of letting up. It was clear they were hoping and praying for the full time whistle the moment the second half kicked off. To quote a phase Guy Ritchie sums up well,40-0 “ Football club were praying for the whistle and if they weren’t they better were”. With a sharp break down the left, Tom ‘I played so well in open play because my kicking was average’ Duffy sold a Bulls player the dummy of his life and found himself cutting wide down the right wing, only problem was Weasel hadn’t planned for the Ginger Ninja to send not 1 but 3 dummies and still be running towards the line. Duffy was looking for support and not sure which was to come sooner, a crashing tackle from a Bulls player steaming his way or the touch line, took the tackle out of the forming ruck Boris 'Tonsilitis is a severe condition' Niethammer picked the ball up and dove over the line for the final try of the game. The score was now at 48-0, with Tin Tin to clinch the half century against club, however wasn’t to be but as the final whistle went every Griff there knew what we had just achieved. Not only did we give them a schooling on how to play rugby, Forward play and backs linkage but didn’t let them into out half, let alone our 22 and even more importantly touch over our line, no one crosses that line lightly. In true Griff style, exemplifying the caliber of Griffs, we didn’t sing or take photos under the scoreboard. We showed humility and believe me they will not likely forget that shoeing for a long long time. A great win and a great team effort for all that played, supported and belong to the Griffins fold.

Tries went to Harvard, Ash, Father Craig (first ever), Woody x 2, Toby, Boris and Dom. All off the back of a great team effort. Dom (bald) nice one on the pictures throughout the game, for our memories to savor and gents get Dom to show you his trainers, truly epic!!!

On another note………

Once again club never ceases to amaze how low they will sink. Since getting embarrassed so badly by the Griffs they haven’t even been able to muster up their usual ‘comical’ and insightful match report on where they went wrong and all the dick tugging that usually ensues in their games. All they could managed in absence of their match report was a ‘dignified’ complaint to the HKRFU that we, men of Griffs were in fact not who we say we were. The audacity of that alone, would give grievance to any man but to infer anyone who took the pitch against them in a slaughterhouse fashion was indeed not a Griff, is nothing short of slanderous. How dare they!!!! They will pay for this!!!!

With a result like 48-0 (could have been 50-0, cheers Duffy), this sends out an almighty message to the rest of the teams left to play. The Beavers of Kowloon will no doubt be gearing up for a battle in light of this and we must continue this commitment, form and heart that has built up from this Griffs side. Playing for the man on your left and your right, certainly paid off this weekend and we will show this onwards and upwards towards clinching the Grand Championship. Gentleman thank you for Saturday’s game, it was truly a pleasure!!