Match Report

What more could a church want? The sun was shining, the church was more full then I have ever seen it and then over 50 of us went The scene was set, the pitch marked out with flip flops and jumpers. The oldies were stretching while the youngsters were sipping cool cider (we shall see later on which was the more successful warm-up).

We youngsters had a point to prove after being beaten last time in a classic "next try wins" scenario, and yet something about being up against the good looking, fit and athletic younger team brings out the competiveness of the oldies. Some light warm up matches began with some slinky moves from the younger team, sneaking through gaps that didn’t exist (and occasionally trying to run through brick walls...) while the oldies played simple, and yet incredibly effective, rugby passing the ball fluidly between themselves to score on several occasions but the youngsters took first blood.

The second match went quite convincingly to the older generation with their soft hands and eagle eyes (!) proving to be too much for the eager and yet somewhat ragged youngsters.

All eyes were now on the final match, several of the oldies were off by now with "a slight twinge" (naming no names, James Curtis-Pond) and the intensity was high, balls were being thrown everywhere, behind backs, over heads, some players made it back 5 yards, some just stood offside but it was evenly matched. That was until Archie Coates got the ball, seeing the line he made a dash only to find Jonny Gumbel blocking his way. Now we all know the rules of touch, it's a non contact sport but Archie decided that this was the perfect time to bring out a textbook handoff, simply guiding Jonny to his left as he stole through the line. Some say it was cheating, some say it was good play, the ref thought it was fine and so the oldies were up! After this we played so much that the final scores were lost in a deluge of tries, and with the oldies down to 3 men (plus Tom Raiss) the match was stopped at an honourable draw. A fitting end to a well played game of touch. It was a fantastic afternoon and one we all hope will be repeated soon.