Mustangs 31 - 15 Kowloon Pussies

A much improved performance against a much vaunted (mainly by themselves) Kowloon Pussies outfit on Saturday saw the Tangs run out fairly comfortable winners. The ever professional Tangs outfit - we actually had a training session in the week - will be looking to continue the improvements in fitness and develop combinations in key positions as they raise their performance level to mount their challenge for a 4-peat of Grand Final victories this season. It also helped that it wasn't about 700 degrees in the shade as it had been against HKFC the week before.

After the expected early effort from Kowloon Pussies the forwards started to dominate and a rumbling try for the evergreen (and often purple with rage) Mr Riebe put us in front for good. Te Rau then showed us why he is such a fine runner of the ball by promptly missing the conversion by a country mile. Even by his high standards Laurent's latest injury effort was an absolute cracker - after being felled by a combination of Wes and an errant Kowloon leg he managed not only to sprain his knee forcing him off the field, but also managed to break his hand in the process. A foolish game to play upping the ante in the long-running injury competition he and I have going back about 14 years at Valley - and predictably I managed to match him with my own injury later in the day backing up for the Broncos. Fricking fantastic!

The only positive to come out of Laurent's injury was the entrance of new super sub, Troy 'bring back the biff' Barnes, donning Valley colours for the first time. He made an almost instant impression by reviving a lost art and actually kicking a conversion between the uprights, following the artist now known as 'X' busting a couple of tackles to barge over for his first ever Tang try - nice! All on track now with the Ape, Craig, X, et al winning great ball and Te, Wes and Troy carving up in the backs, giving Alex le G, Rico and Chris room to show their speed.

As ever with the Tangs in front and dominating we get a little bored and decide to play a bit of 7s touch and pass stuff, which invariably ends up in us bombing a great position and giving the opposition a bonus intercept try. That meant we turned round at half-time only 12-10 up, despite having had most of the ball and played most of the rugby. That would all be put right in the 2nd-half with Boozer taking over temporarily from Te Rau, who had 'pulled a lung'. The mercurial 5/8th Boozer, this year sponsored by Neopreen and HK Surgeons, had a few issues to get out of his system. One of those was his jealousy of other teammates with a better injury record than himself (ie everyone else in the squad); to try and set the record straight he threw a couple of chin high passes to Wes and Troy opening up the rib cages whilst clearly heard muttering 'better you take the hit than me ya mongrels!' With pride restored, and Wes off injured, the Booze man started to show his stuff; stepping, giving the 'big don't answer' and literally igniting the back-line. Troy 'Jimmy' Barnes bashed his way through umpteen tackles from 40 yards out to score under the black dot, followed by Alex le G hurtling round the opposition to score another - once again the Bayonne Express showed the benefits of his pre-match 'gasper' and glass of vin rouge.

With the game won and the crowd starting to shift their focus to the free beers on the side-line, this reporter lost track of some of the details of the final few minutes. Suffice it say the Mustangs pack continued to go forward, tackles were made and tries were scored, possibly by both teams. The end result - the Loonies sent packing and a big fat juicy W for the Mighty Tangs!

DISCLAIMER!!!
Any similarities between this report and the game of rugby played between Kowloon Pussies and Valley Mustangs, Sat 10th Oct 2009 is entirely coincidental.

Fire it up,

JC