Twits headed out to Abbottsford on Sunday for a game with the Originals. Abbey fielded about 18 and the Twits were more around 21-22. We didn’t have any of the regular scrum halves so Ben got the assignment. Field was a bit soft and grass was a problem clogging up the cleats.
Abbey didn’t have a ref so someone’s poor son got assigned. No touch judges either as we figured out after the first couple minutes. But Glen was there on the far touch line. The coin toss was Abbey telling TJ that they hadn’t kicked in 2 years so we were kicking to them and they didn’t want to change ends because that was too far to walk.
So we kicked off and mayhem ensued. There was some sloppy ball and knock-ons, rucks with hands in and coming in from the side. Someone ran out of bounds and kept going (that’s when we figured out there was no touch judge on the near side. It took a while before the ref blew the whistle – followed by the comment ‘oh, he does have a whistle’. There were plays so blatant that everyone stopped and then when there was no whistle they scrambled back after the ball. Second blow of the whistle was Brendan scoring, off a pass in the end-zone from Lance of course. By now everyone was aware anything went so rucks were just a shambles but despite that we looked like we had some structure to our game with posts being put out in the rucks and us moving the ball.
Abbey only had a couple players with any speed so their game was just crash ball. We had a bit more structure and variety to our game. It became obvious quickly that spinning the ball was the way to go and we got a number out wide for scores. 2-0 after the first quarter. Second quarter was bizarrely short. More like 5 minutes than 15 and at about 1:25 half time was called but we still got 2 more to make it 4-0 at the half.
Abbey got some wind back at the half and came out and struck for 2 tries. But they were playing pretty flat in general and Luke and Dale both got picks that they took home. Third quarter was now bizarrely long going 20 to 25 minutes. Ted busted through the line at about the 20 after 2 steps no one bothered to pursue him, really who’s going to catch Ted in full flight, so he sauntered in for a try. Abbey was tackling hard but they really weren’t into chasing.
In the end it was 8-2 for the Twits with Luke getting 3, Brendan had 2, Dale, Ted and then I think maybe Rick or Lance. We may have had more than 8.
Good game by the boys under poor officiating and Lolly got game match player along with the Abbey girl playing scrum half in red.