The Rest Of The World Slams Britain in a brawling hit-out.

Part One – Rugby Training with Mark Trollope

Start of the night saw the usual touch warm up session, within only a few minutes of the initial warm up Ray Howells had broken his finger and Jamie King his nose, clearly a sign of things to come!

First on the cards from Trainer T was a revision of the hit and hammer, this got the boys blood pumping and as the initial light runs built up the hits started coming in.

This was followed with a hit, hammer and recycle ball session which again was very popular, particularly with the forwards.

Trainer T set up two teams of three defenders with pads and then, in groups of six, the boys came piling in, the first three taking the first set of defenders and recycling the ball out to the next phase. This developed into multiple phases of play which was good to see across the board. As Trainer T noted it was good work all round and very encouraging for the coming games to see multiple phases of ball control

Part Two – R.O.W. (rest of the world) v British Lions Football

Originally billed as Australia v R.O.W. the Aussies soon realised that their skill level was not up to that and the game was re-hashed into the British Lions (not POMS) v ROW

The following is a review of both teams performance:

R.O.W.

Matty Read was without a doubt the saviour of the much weaker ROW team. Multiple shots from Ray, Bruce, Mark H and even Colin all found themselves smothered by the professionally kitted out (he wore goalie gloves!) Matty Read.

The ROW know that if it wasn’t for their Golden boot Boyo award winning goalie they would have been thrashed.

Jamie King, Mita, Deano and Peter provided the strong defensive line for the ROW. Jamie was like a pittbull snapping at the heals, Deano and Peter were all over any attacking move making it hard for the lions to break through while Meta dazzled (with his tan) and constantly cleared the ball.

In attack the rest of the world had a plethora of power with big boys Skip and Darren (aka Thomas the tank engine) muscling their way through to put several shots on the target. This coupled with the skilful footwork of Frank and the speed of Sean meant the inevitable onslaught of goals would follow.

British Lions

Cowboys Jekyl and Hyde game saw some psycho moments happening outside the box but these were more than made up for his fine efforts in the goal. Several shots looked certain to find their way into the back of the net only to be denied by Cowboys stretching arms which simple reached over from the other end of the field and swatted the ball away.

As defiant as Churchill himself the defensive line was anchored by Tim and Mark T who fought with the honour and pride of a nation. They were kind of supported by the confused style of play exhibited by Just In and Neil who clearly had problems remembering which side/way they were playing.

The unbiased referring from Trooper ensured a good flow to the game coupled with appropriate free kicks awarded to the Lions whenever they got tired.

Ray Howells was a delight to watch, his ball control was second to none and it took four ROW players to relinquish the ball that often appeared glued to his feet.

Bruce and Mark H were also pivotal in the offensive front line of the lions. Bruce clearly remembering his playing days 30 years ago put on an impressive display of ball control through the centre/left field and Mark H, assisted by the hand of god, proved the dominant force in the right field. Both were rewarded with a goal a piece but like Ray deserved so much more.

At the end of the game the ROW had 2 goals from Darren and 2 goals from Frank with a further killer from Sean against the goals scored by Bruce and Mark H for the Lions.

With maths obviously not their strong point the ROW left the field rejoicing and chanting 3-2, 3-2, 3-2, 3-2 !!!

With a heavily rumoured rematch pending the boys drank their way late into the night

Well done everyone on a cracking night – Onwards and Upwards