Please God, give me dark & stormy night any time of the day, this was our 4th hot and humid game in a row, although nowhere near as hot as the boiling cauldron that was Abbotsford, the scene of our famous victory over the Evangelists. “I would just like to take this opportunity to thank God, oh shit we lost.” that was the speech their Captain almost made. ” My God, my God, why have you forsaken us ? ” Because you are tossers, that’s why ! “. Anyway you are only as good as your last game, so in Kelowna we had to put our 3 stunning victories behind us and get to grips with the fact that we only had 12 players, this would not normally be a problem, except that depressingly half of them were backs, who had never come out of the closet, and probably never would, except for Dedric but that’s a story I’ve promised never to repeat.
Although I was somewhat saddened at our turn out for a fixture that ballads have been sung about, stories written, Hollywood movies almost based on, I was glad to see that 2 chaps who had made the mistake of coming along to watch were so easily persuaded to join our cause. One was Chris ,a mate of Sergio’s living in Kelowna, who possessed all the youthful exuberance, so typical of a mere 40 year old, the other was Eric ” The Crusher ” Cable, his son Shane shared all his father’s attributes except for speed, skill, toughness,decision making & handsome features, otherwise they were identical. We quickly realized that our hosts only had 13 players themselves so we agreed on 12 aside.
As was customary we were all given a shot of possibly port by someone in a cassock who winked at a couple of our backs who shall remain nameless because of their South African heritage, and the ref blew for kick off. We had a good back line but it was always going to be difficult playing against a a nifty winger who’s Dad, Dedric remembered playing against in old boy’s rugby, and a Fijian who looked like he might need 2 pieces of I.D. to get into the bar afterwards, and he kept saying ” I wish Mum was here to see me play.” Needless to say we were 2 tries down in as many minutes and we were somewhat perplexed. But the Snowcaps don’t cut and run, well not very often, so we fought back to make a game of it. We won the front row battle with Dazza and Dave being joined by Hammer at loose head making his first appearance of the season stepping in for Reno who was at a yoga retreat, working on his posture, sense of centre and mental clarity. Well Hammer was rarely seen without the ball and had a storming game and combined well with Dave & Dazza to take 3 against the head. Walshy once again displayed the air supremacy of a stealth fighter and was helped by the ground support of Eric and Kent. I was at Number 8 as both teams had agreed to play without flankers, well great there goes the flair and finesse.
Andrew W. scrum halved rather well, and Dedric was a bit stand offish at fly half ,with comparisons being made to a certain Daniel Carter, unfortunately not the one who played rugby. Joe enjoyed an inside centre battle against his fellow Fijian and Sergio sportingly played out of position at outside centre. Chris from Kelowna & Jim H. were on the wings and Dougie was at full back. Their nifty winger got a 3rd but despite the score we had some great passing plays between the forwards and the backs, Chis would have scored had he not tripped, & then Dougie got one back. We all gave it everything we had, even more than we had, Dougie ran through a couple of their players to score another and then a gap appeared from nowhere which Dedric took advantage of to score our third and make the score a respectable 6-3 by the end of the game.
Dougie was our M.O.M. and he acquitted himself well in the beer race against their South African M.O.M., he won the race and they were fairly even as to spillage down their shirts.
I was in Kelowna for 2 nights and had taken the unprecedented step of taking my wife with me, on a purely experimental basis, as great an experience as it was, I am not totally convinced that rugby ends up being the winner when wives are included, and let’s face it we need rugby to be the winner.
As Thanksgiving is definitely a time when wives and kids should be included, even our own, we declined to participate in this years “Gobbler” in Abbotsford, as you can only beat them so many times in one year at their place. Did I mention that we beat them at their place, first team in 3 years ? Look lads it’s only a game you don’t have to gloat about it . Anyway this week is a bye and the following week welcomes the Nobs from Seattle who incidentally have tied us 2 years running and have therefore come the closest to breaching ” The Fortress ” during our 2 year home unbeaten run. They normally decimate our ranks in Seattle so if they bring the Tongan and their best players, we will need to raise them a Fijian and possibly fly in our Tongan just to raise the stakes. Of course we have more than enough fire power to blow them out the water so we just need a good turnout. I hope Harley, who broke his arm in his first game, is on the mend, & as for the 3 lads out with broken ribs, look boys you can only milk it for so long, we have a big game in 12 days so stop messing around, & that goes for the gay Cockney Welshman who has “rolled his ankle”, bless him.