London Media RFC

Cheers for Saturday fellas, it was a great match: shame we lost

A fairly standard media start; They were warming up with contact and drills 1 hour before kickoff, we managed to get 10/12 people out for a 10 minute stretch.

Consequently they hit us hard from the off, slicing through our line for an early try.

We hit back through good counter sniping and took the lead. From then on it was all them, good defence saved a few tries before they knocked over 2 pens and retook the lead.

Disappointingly we switched off just before half time and conceded a late try, leaving a mountain to climb.

However, warmup over, it was a different media that took the field second half. The forwards won a lot of ball and at times we used it well in the backs. A good team move resulted in a try in the corner that had been coming. Wayne was then denied a perfectly good try that would have put us back in the lead. 5 minutes of sleepiness cost us another shit try before Phil ‘Fagan’ Burnard charged over the line and put us right back within 2 points.

However bad reffing, a little bit of choking/ bad decision making and some shlepping around with the ball meant we pushed hard for the points we needed but never quite got over the line

Their last 2 tries were a result of us pushing hard for the win (and Mongo taking us from their try line with possession to deep in our own half without the ball)

Final score was 35 – 21.

We got 3 tries (all converted). Rob, Phil & me

They got 5 & 2 pens.

Hos

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The final score on Saturday was 32-59. The match report, this time brought to you by Pete Guest, goes a little bit like this:

Despite going behind early on, the Occies took a rare but deserved victory away to Cranleigh. Delayed by traffic and fielding a depleted pack, we piled on the pressure from the kick off, but somehow managed to let Cranleigh slip in two tries on the break, with only some inept kicking from their 10 keeping us in sight. Ali’s boot, a high take from the kick off and an Ish shimmy put us back in touch. Cranleigh started to crumble and Media ran in a couple straight after the restart, as the opposition started to lose players through injury. A straight red for their second row for a blatant punch in front of the ref with 5 minutes to go looked like the end of their match, but they briefly rallied and the ref found another 10 minutes on his stopwatch, which just gave us time to put a couple more names on the scoresheet.

Peter Guest

Man of the match was a difficult choice with so many playing well. Mike Harris played exceptionally well considering he had had a chest infection all week. I remember him flattening one of their second rows with a ‘sit down and dont’ get up tackle’. Shane (a.k.a. Mini Wayne) and Nick Corcoran bravely entered the front row with what must have been the fastest front row ever to have been fielded and it showed with the energy of their breaks and tackles. Unfortunately Nick has suffered from a fractured eye socket and will be out for a few weeks so let’s all hope he recovers quickly. Rob Brooks and Rob Condon had solid games in the engine room, although Rob C doesn’t remember making a tackle in the game. The back row were excellent. Damo, particularly from kick offs, was always a threat. Nick Conners was destructive at 8 and guided the pack both with his quick breaks, tackling and talk. Pete Guest played like a man possessed by the devil himself. The oppo most have been sick of the sight of him by the end of the game.

Debutant, Tom Lindley, played a ‘Dawson-like’ game at 9 with some great cover tackling, endless energy and a penchant for quick penalties. In the other backs, John Parker was unstoppable as ever. Andy Davey covered both wings well and still had time to link up with his older bro, Jonothon Davey in attack. Aidan played the first half before taking a big blow to the ribs. Thankfully, this did not hinder Aiden’s performance on the dancefloor later that evening. The Man of the Match was a toss up between Jonothon Davey and Alli. Jonathon Davey put in some crushing tackles and cut the oppo open at ease with his bucaneering runs. His prediction of ‘No. 13 is going to wake up on Sunday morning and seriously consider giving up Rugby’ may have just been proven correct. Alli, however, pipped Jon to the post with a fantastic game at 12 and then 15. His kicking was as assured as I have seen at this club and he also managed to score his first try for the club with his own little chip and chase.

Dick of the Day me for getting over the try line 3 times and only scoring once. Nuff’ said.

Afternoon lads,

Thanks to everyone’s efforts on Saturday, here is how the Occies day went down:

26^th September 2009 was the day the Occies showed they were not going to fade silently into the night, but show the Surrey rugby league we WILL play each match this season and WILL play hard & fast rugby.

A warm Saturday in Battersea Park with 15 London Media men waiting at the changing rooms at 1.45pm was the perfect start for the occies assault on the league this year. With the oppo delayed due to traffic we even had time to do a proper warm up, a few grids, get our pacey back line familiar with the moves and let the forwards snort, snarl and work themselves up into a frenzied state ready to take on Caterhamians. Sam Parker epitomised London Media’s eagerness to get stuck into the oppo by not allowing Caterhamians time to run through any drills due to their late arrival.

The first 10 minutes saw media play with sensible heads – playing territory through Ben our new big and powerful fly half and then looking for 2^nd and 3^rd phases with the short ball for the forwards to smash it up. Mal Tucker was in fine form and needed at least 3 players to stop his barraging runs. Mike, Judge and Russ held our scrum steady and it was great to see media taking the game to the oppo.

The turning moment came after Tom our new flanker winning our lineout and the ball working its way to Ali who popped a short ball to Jonathan Davey, also on debut who smashed his way up the field like a wrecking ball giving us a chance to batter the Caterhamians line for a few minutes. After 5 mins of sustained pressure, we went blind & quick hands from Ali sent Shane Smith, another making his debut in for a great try in the corner. LMRFC 5-3.

Caterhamians kicked off again & media took it straight back up the pitch with Dan Poulson & Sam Parker running hard to make the distance and get us camped on their 22 again. The ref pinged Caterhamians for hands in the ruck and with a quick tap penalty fired through to Benny who barged his way over London media were in the mood and 10-3 up with 25 mins gone.

We should have kept our foot on the gas for the last 10 mins of the half as we had Caterhamians on the ropes as they did not like our pace or direct lines of running, but instead only added a penalty to take us into the break 13-3 up.

We lost our shape and structure a bit in the 2^nd half and allowed Caterham to play with the ball which got them back into the game with a couple of easy tries, but there were still some crunching hits going in and if only we’d been able to run at their defence again I’m sure we would have done more damage, as it stood our backs didn’t get their hands on the ball in the 2^nd half and spent 40 mins defending.

Andy Davey & Aidan showed their gas on numerous occasions and constantly beat defenders and I’m sure in a couple of games time we’ll have support runners with them to help rain in the tries.

Glyn came on to replace me after 65 mins (I had just accidentally speared their number 8 not realising he’d passed the ball a couple of seconds earlier, so thought it was best to make my bow then). Glyns presence was felt immediately by the oppo by absolutely smashing their outside centre and lifting the tempo.

The game was led from the front by big Sam parker who played like a man possessed and Ish who organised the team and managed superbly from the sidelines as he recovers from injury.

All in all, it was a great effort by the occies and a really enjoyable game with the final result being 13-27. lets get the same team out in 2 weeks time for the next league game against cranleigh and build from here. I for one loved being back in the LMRFC shirt and playing alongside great players at Battersea park.

Ben, Shane, Jonathan & Tom enjoyed the fine taste of a red eye back at the latch for breaking their LMRFC cherries and hopefully we’ll see them sucking back a few more throughout the season for their efforts!

MOTM was Ben who played with boundless energy and a big physical presence.

The next two weeks we have:

• 3^rd October: Club friendly vs Streatham & Croydon 3rds (away)
• 10^th October: Cranleigh 2nds (away)

So get them in your diary and see you all at training 8pm at battersea arena on Wednesday night.

Cheers,

JC

So there we go boys. Another classic media encounter, last minute changes, some beautiful spells of rugby, certain people (that will remain unnamed) turning up with but minutes to spare and Ed shouting at the ref. Unfortunately this time the result didn’t quite go are way.

After taking over 3 hours to get to the match due to the fine folk who run the London transport system it was goods to see 13 guys on the pitch doing some proper warm ups for once. A rarity I know but it certainly proved worth while as for the first 3-4 minutes the ball was flying around the pitch without a pause for breath. From talking to the ref and the oppo after the match they thought they we’re in for a 50 point drubbing even at that early stage.

We opened up the account with a penalty from Green after a few nice phases and some strong running from the boys in the pack and Big Gay Dave in midfield. Unfortunately we seemed to fall asleep in defence and let in a soft try. I’m not going to explain what happened ‘cause, well I was involved and nobody cares about them anyway.

At this point tom decided to pulled his groin which lead to Nicky Connors to come to the rescue and move up to make his front-row debut. Unfortunately Nick was stupid and decided to play really well there so will no doubt be called on again some time! I should mention the whole front row at this point as Mattys bid to become our new outside centre took another step forward with some rampaging runs and Jo Birri moved from hooker to prop and didn’t take a step backwards all day. It was a fine effort from those boys.

We came back strong with another 3 points form Green but then eased up again and let in a further weak try. At the end of the half we down something like 3 tries to 6 points but had shown some wonderful skills when running with the ball and knew that as long as we had possession we’d easily take the victory.

Come the second half we again started brightly and decided that we didn’t’ need to score off the first phase every time and decided to put some phases together. After some strong running and some great off loads from practically the whole team Ed drove the ball forward leaving us to spin the ball wide and give Will an nice run into the corner. It was a great try and someone with a better memory and the ability to write interesting reports could of conveyed this…. unfortunately you guys just have me.

I’m getting bored now so essentially they scored another try and we didn’t. Enough said. For 30 mins of the second half we didn’t have the ball and without that it kind of makes it hard to score! The last play of the game almost resulted in the try of the season after BGD and Greeny decided to tear through their defence from our own line but unfortunately it fizzled out. End score 29 – 14.

Throughout the afternoon a few players really stood up with the brothers Benedict Richard Carl Buckley and Greeny constantly breaking through their defence. It was great to have Graham finally back, he show some great leadership and kept the team going whilst I was trying not to throw up and together with Randy put in a fine defensive effort in the back row. Half the team were playing out of position and I didn’t here one person btch or moan about this. Ed, Nick, Jo, Pete you all stepped up and it was massively appreciated.

There’s many things to learn from this, not least to actually hold on to the ball, but I don’t think focusing on the negatives at this point will do any good (we’ll do that another time!). A times we showed some flashes of brilliance and some real indication that we are going to be one of the teams to beat this year once we iron out a couple of early season flaws.

Next week

So boys. Squad game this week I think and I’ll send out detail when I find out what the hell they are but if you know you are around anyway then please let me know.

Cheer,

Fagin

Hi boys… So I’ve not got any time to get a proper report together from last weeks game but just like to thank everyone who turned up to face an opposition who on paper were a very much stronger outfit.

For the first 20mins we dominated the match and they barely touched our half. My inspirational decision to move Chig to centre (basically cause Frapps didn’t want to) proved genius as most of the oppo defence seemed to focus on him allowing Frapps to get 5 yards of space to exploit before fending off one would be tackler to score in the corner.

It was a shame post this we let the game get away from ourselves. The winner simply boiled down to who had the most possession and we just didn’t control the ball enough. It was a shame but it was a spirited performance by all involved who came up against a team who were at least two leagues above us (I say at least as that was a select team of their 1sts and 2nds!).

We need to take heart from this as we proved our individual ability, now we just need to play as a team.

After I ran away at half time I here we had an even more successful second half with hossey picking up a pair. Cheers for matty for taking over and everyone else who turned up for a tough tough match. It really was great to see such a large squad down there.

This is when it starts…

So to this Saturday… It’s the first league game so this is HUGE. As said the 1^st have an away game @ Caterhamians at 3pm so can we make sure everyone is down there for 1:45 and CHANGED AND ON THE PITCH FOR 2:15.

We’ve had some great numbers and some big performances so far this season so PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR AVALIBILITY ASAP. This is a must win guys so lets get the strongest team possible out there.

Directions – Look on google!

Cheers,

Phil

Hi people,

So there we go. First game down, many muscles, lungs and limbs destroyed but a positive showing even though it ended in a narrow loss 2 tries to 3. The game was played with a great atmosphere from start to finish and there was some great individual performances out there which proved to me that as long as we start playing as a team we’ll be a massive force in surrey 2 this year.

I’d firstly like to thank Russ for playing for the oppo for the whole game. I know they were grateful and with every wonky lineout we certainly were to. The boy had a great game, it was a great effort and I really appreciate it.

On the flank this year we’re going to have some massive problems because certain players are really putting themselves out there to grab those first team slots with the two nicks taking on everything that was thrown at them and doing what every good flanker should and pissing off the ref at every opportunity. Even though Chiggy had a storming game (when he ran straight!) this year it seems like we’re going to have a rival to the most meters gained crown in the form of our flying prop matty who I think was as shocked as anyone after a couple of storming runs still had gas in the tank for one last go at the oppo only to be pulled back form a guaranteed try (well maybe) by the ref. Great effort sat mate.

Even though there’s many names I should mention my lunch ended about 15 minutes a go so I should get to it but I just wanted to say it was a great defensive effort by us all with them only really managing to break the line a couple of times. Wayno lead this with a couple of great covering tackles which saved my blushes so thanks for that.

Oh and lastly thanks to all the new (and old) faces we haven’t seen for a while. Looks like we’re going to have the strongest front 5 we’ve had for a while and the biggest centre we’ve had since… well chig had a game there. I hope we see you all again.

To move forward we’re going to have to nail those basics and maybe have some possession that lasts more than 2 phases(!) but that will come. Good start boys.

This week
A reminder of the details of this weekend’s game. It’s a 2.15pm KO AT HOME against Shooters Hill in the Prelimary round of the Junior Vase – the National cup competition.

Both myself and wayne are out this week so matty is going to take charge and lead you boys so can we get as many names down as we can to make sure we have a great line up for the guy.

Please make ever effort you can guys. It’s really important we get this season up and running with win at fortress Battersea.

Thanks again for everyone’s efforts last week.

Take it easy… fagin