It’s been a funny old season this year.

Even though it feels like we’ve haven’t done as well as last year, we have. We got three victories, over The Leys, Qeen ELizabeth Boys and the mighty Felsted. Same number of victories as the 1st XV. But, as Mr.Luke, our couch, put it last night, on top of that we ‘lost five, and got stuffed in six of them’. I think it’s probably the coach as well. He’s probably a better coach than last year, but Monaghan was probably a bit more fun. Anyway, I thought I would do a review of the season just to make myself feel better now that my last season has finished.

The Leys - Won 36-5.

A very encouraging win to the start of the season, considering we only warmed up for about 5 minutes before hand. We pretty much ran them ragged in the backs, and our back-row, particularly Stav, minced them up. Also the first time I played with Robbie, who managed to score two tries, and generally used his aggression to boss them around. Our line-out and scrum did not work very well throughout, and this continued through the season, so it’s a testament to our backs that we won this game.

Stowe - Lost 0-60.

Just plain horrible. They were a much, much better side than us in almost all aspects, and we were simply turned into mincemeat. Not much fun her. The front five played like back rowers, and the back row played like backs. This team (unbeaten at time of writing) probably could have given our 1st XV a good stuffing, but there you go, I had hoped that this wouldn’t happen again.

QE Boys - Won 27-8.

We played the first 20 minutes 5 metres away from our line - it looked like being a long day by half time. Luckily, like with The Leys, our backs ran them ragged. I set up a try that day from our AAA battery powered winger in Alex Andreas Alexandrou, and he scored two more to make it a hat-trick. Great game, a good win against a side that was a lot closer to us than The Leys were.

Sevenoaks - Lost 0-53.

It’s not fun travelling 2 hours to get eaten alive by a team that to be honest, weren’t that much better than us. We just let them run towards us, and then got more confident. We had probably half of our first-choice forward pack here today, and the same for our backs. Was not a good day. I played like an absolute animal that day and got Man o’ the Match, but that didn’t matter since we just lay down and let them beat us.

Watford Grammar - Lost 0-55.

Don’t actually remember much about this game, except we had Sami on the wing. A small fella, probably better suited for hooking, but great pace, especially in touch rugby. Not great against the beast of a winger Watford had against him. But overall, it was the teams fault we lost that game, and again it was just too much.

Habs - Lost 19-31.

Though we lost, this game was probably the most memorable of the first half of the season. We had Charlie, Rory, Robbie and Bob down from the 1st’s, and we had an immense game which we should have won. However, the referee had it in for us from the get go. We made silly comment, and he took us for everything. On one occasion, they knocked on 5 metres from our line, we picked it up and ran to that same distance away from our line, and he called advantage over. It’s that sort of stupid biased called that made this match disgusting to watch from the sidelines (the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half was the only time I didn’t play this season).

Merchant Taylors - Lost 7-23.

Merchant Taylor’s is always a big game on our calendar, and generally speaking they are a much better side than us. But at 0-3 down at half-time, I knew we could take them. My first game as captain, and this proved to be a stern test. They only managed to finally score off a 3 man overlap towards the end, and it was unfortunate that we lost, as we had a great game and really pushed them.

Berkhamstead - Lost 0-42.

Not fun. We did not have the energy for this game. They just ran through us and round us. Definitely a low point on the second half of the season, because basically they did not deserve that scoreline, because they were not that much better than us.

UCS - Lost 0-5.

This hurt. This really hurt. The first half ended 0-0 after we had been in our 22 for about 20 minutes. Every one of us just kept making mistake after mistake, giving away scrums and penalities. In the 2nd half, they got a lucky break off a missed tackle and went 5-0 up, and then situation become a mirror of what happened in the first half. Robbie was with us again as we were camped in their 22, and he did in fact score off a 2-main line-out, but by the time the ref had walked over to see if he had grounded it, UCS had got their hands under it. Meh.

Felsted - Won 5-0.

Definitely not a match I expected to win, but we did in the end, thanks for a bit of magic from the backs, and some ridiculous defending on our part. After scoring that try, we practically defended to whole match. But it was completely worth it to get a win over a side as historically talented as Felsted. Highlight of the season for me, also because we went out for party afterwards as well.

Latymer Upper - Lost 8-12.

This team had been stomped by UCS at the beginning of the season, and they had also lost to QE Boys, so we went into this match expecting to win. But it just would not come. We had plenty of opportunities, but mistakes were made, be it penalties given away by the forwards or balls dropped by the backs. It also didn’t that firstly, their number 4 was as tall as one of our lifting pods, and two, I had given blood the day before (STUPID!) and had no energy whatsoever.

Bishop’s Stortford College - Lost 47-8.

I was actually playing for the 1st XV for this match, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but again we got pretty much stuffed. As did the 1st’s to be honest, and but even so, we got stuffed.

Mill Hill County 1st XV - Lost 20-32.

The last two years, Mill Hill County have not had any other feature other than this match against the 2nd’s, so traditionally, apart from one or two County player’s they have (in this case, the fly-half, who could do no wrong), they not very good. Big, but rubbish. This year, however, they had had a few more matches, and it showed in their organisational play, which was better than we expected. We were within one score with two minutes to go, but a few missed tackles lost it for us. And the fact we played on Top Field (with has a gradient of about 40 degrees on a good day) knackered us out completely, especially in the forwards.

St Albans - Lost 0-49.

Not the best way to end my rugby playing career, and as Captain, but with a side that was as easily as good as that Stowe team, I was proud we held them back for much of the game. They just had that little bit more pace and strength in the key areas which we lacked, and therefore took us to the cleaners. But it was all worth it just to see Ed’s tackle on their 7, who basically flipped around in the air.

Overall, an enjoyable season, from which I made a lot of friends in the year’s below, became Captain, and in the end got player of the season. Maybe I’ll play for the old Mill Hillians next year, which should definitely be fun.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Rugby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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