I knew it was going to be an interesting game when I looked through the list of 20 players for the Occies and only recognised 5 names!!
Sure enough, arrive at some God forsaken park in St. Margarets via taxi as Richmond was packed with bemused commuters trying to locate their rail replacement bus to find myself in a changing room full of strangers with the odd familiar face in attendance,
First shock of the day was realising that the lad occupying all of ‘Props Corner’ was none other than Dai Rees who had obviously been ”building himself” a healthy layer of sub-cutaneous fat in preparation for a cold hard winter.
My warm up consisted of the 10 minute walk to the pitch to find a young and well drilled Law Society going through their paces.
Media’s preparation seemed to consist of each member of the scrum endeavouring to learn the line out calls (not a task that they could be said to have excelled in!).
From the off the game was played with a heady intensity that was unfortunately not matched by accuracy of pass or tackle or kick, with Will Crowder finding the ‘sweet spot’ in his right boot far to frequently resulting in kicks going straight out and a 5 minute wait while an unfortunate spectator had to run several hundred yards to retrieve the ball.
With both teams fairly equal in terms of possession and territory and both having missed a penalty attempt a surge up the hill by Media resulted in Rugby league Dave muscling himself over the line from a few meters out after good Media pressure with the far from svelte referee still labouring up the hill.
After much back slapping and self-congratulatory hugs the game restarted and pretty much straight from the kick off the young and speedy law scrummy broke through a few tired tackles (all that back slapping?) and slipped the ball to his equally youthful and speedy winger who consequently scored in the corner.
So there you have it, 5-5 at half time and all to play for….by this time the urbane and laconic Ed Ugboma had strolled to the touchline and was immediately asked to replace a tired fellow back rower, all of this happening despite my several sets of star jumps, sprints and press ups carried out on the sidelines in the forlorn attempt to get the Captains attention that there were still quality players (and fully paid up members of London Media) gagging to join the fray (Dan and I will be setting up a 3rd team shortly).
The 2nd half started much as the first had begun but Media’s line out was now in the ascendancy with Mark taking good ball from both Hookers and some good runs from the pack.
Mr Ugboma was also pirouetting out of tackles like Rudolph Nureyev on Trimodal and one of these classy moves ended with Ed touching down under the posts……uunfortunately for Ed, our Rubenesque Ref had seen things rather differently and said that Ed had been held up.
This resulted in Mr Ugboma managing to simultaneously spit the dummy while throwing his toys out of his pram and laughing ironically in a master class of acting not seen since the Royal Shakespeare Company last played Marble Hill Park in ‘the round’.
Media, now fired up by Ed’s Olivieresque performance finally managed to put some phases together and exert pressure on the laws creaking pack by cleverly dangling a pie in front of Paul Nuttall resulting in at least three against the head.
another of Ed’s Bambi on Benzedrine runs resulted in a beautiful offload into the hands of the onrushing Tom Reed who scored the clincher under the posts and sent a flurry of
spectators sprinting down the hill in preparation to chase Wills conversion attempt (that he actually nailed).
Five minutes later when the ball had been retrieved it was a case of backs against the wall as the Law threw everything at attempting to level the scores in the last 10 minutes.
Their momentum was halted by a spectacularly late and driving tackle by our own Dai ‘Beer Barrel’ Reese on his opposite number as Dai had stupidly believed the rumours that said centre was seen delving into Dais lunch box during the break (not a euphemism).
So Media held on for a hard fought victory against a young and well drilled Law Society and while the opposition consoled themselves and Media restarted the backslapping, Dam and yours truly slunk off to plot the downfall of the Captain, the start of Media’s ‘new look’ 3rd team, and how we can impose a system where only those fully paid up club members should get a run out in front of the young upstarts…….the 3rd team is looking favourite!
