The road trip Sunday started at the club house Geddes had the school bus waiting for the team to be ready to leave to take the bus to the Island, Greg Gilding came with coffee and muffins for the long drive to Horse shoe bay.
The bus professionally driven by Geddes got the team to the ground safely a few minutes late, but they could not start with out us.
On the side line, the team was greeted by Ted S, Turk, Dave C Steve Wiles Ted Jung, whom I thought was Ray Brother since I have been at the club.
The Twits had a very quick warm up then the game began.
The always reliable steady hands of Geddes caught the ball from the kick off and with lighting speed & side steps made it to the half way line passing the ball to Lance, the ball went down through the backs, a kick down field was intercepted by Nookie Twits defence was strong, with Falkey playing like a man possessed tackling any thing that moved or did not move, Birthday girl Lolly was always in the action of this fast paced game Nookie moving the ball closer to the Twits try line & succeeded in scoring the first try of the game. 0-1.
The Twits regrouped with kindly words of encouragement of the old but reliable Trevor Johnson and his mentor Pee Wee.
The kick restarted the game with Irish or maybe Nightmare following up on the ball (must have been Irish as Nightmare can not run that fast) bringing the catcher to the ground resulting in a ruck Twits awarded the uncontested scrum, Nookie was able to force nimble footed Dale into touch, Line out to Nookie
who were only putting 4 in the line out then adding one just before the throw, Birthday girl Lolly leapt into the air like a leaping salmon with a controlled tap to “we plenty of time for the bus” Rob Cust scrum half, ball passed out to Geddes passed to Falkey smashing into the defence slipping the ball to ” where did i put that belt” Lance and with Roger Bannister like speed ran in for a quick try. 1-1
Heads up Twits once more went into battle with outstanding efforts by forwards & backs alike, Guch having not played in a two and half years tackled hard and had many fine runs with ball in hand with lots of support from the forwards and backs, ball passed to Irish running with smile on face came in for Twits third try 3-1.
Nookie kicked off, ball caught by TJ ball made it way down the line rucks mauls followed with “I ate to much red meat” Al getting into discussions regarding the merits of hands in rucks and coming round off side to Nookie’s #7 after a misunderstanding on the ref parts Al took a much deserved rest on the side line after being shown the ref covid vaccination card which was yellow.
Penalty given to Nookie not sure what happened next as I was rolling a fag at the time & had my eyes off the game, but from a maul the ball was won by Twits and passed to Mike K who set off like a policeman chasing a mugger to score twits forth try 4-1.
Now what happened for the rest of the game I am not really sure about Twits were running around the field passing the ball winning lines outs and what looked like having fun.
Gord was playing out of his normal position as forward, played on the wing made some good tackles and had some good runs up field passing the ball back in the line of play where the ever present Birthday girl got the ball, ran straight for the line with a Nookie player tackling her just short of the line,
Scrum to Nookie passed the ball out which was magnificently anticipated by lighting speed of foot Dale to score unopposed 5-1
Last periods of the game a lot of pressure by Nookie and great defence by twits did see Nookie get a try 5-2
Twits knowing that not much time was left pressed hard which resulted in two more try’s sorry I lost the paper I had written it on so I don’t know who scored. Final score 7-2.
Ben from the Island made a guest appearance with, his son whom I am told was visiting his father from NZ, came on in the final minutes of the game the ball was won from a scrum and Ben passed the ball out to his son who then passed it to on the wing ‘I could not catch a cold” Dave Irving who then dropped it.
This being the first road trip for some time the game was played well and in good spirit, Pee Wee made sure that everybody got game time a few player pulled leg muscle and some took injuries. Lance was man of the Match and was presented with the Man of the Match belt which he lost Pee Wee has asked if you have it please give it back no questions asked.
There were new rugby friends made some hugging and bonding & a little kissing but we will keep that quiet as you had to be there and what happens on tour says on tour, in true Twits traditions every one had a great time.
This is only possible by the tremendous amount of work put in by so many new & old members alike I had one of the best Sundays of Rugby in a long time and glad I was there.