Without it France would never have beaten the All Blacks in the RWC Semi Final in 1999, Western Samoa wouldn’t have beaten the whole of Wales in the group stages of the 1991 RWC and Jose Mourinho wouldn’t be feeling so embarrassed this morning thanks to Bradford City yesterday.
And so it was with such hope that Hoylake travelled through the tunnel on Sunday morning to our friends at Sefton who had given the under 9s such a royal mauling earlier in the season (11-4 and 14-2). Spirits were high though as the weather was kind and the ground perfect for good rugby (i.e. just enough mud to keep an 8/9 year old interested).
The first game began with an early try for Sefton who started the game with the ball and duly scythed through Hoylake like a little (actually not so little!) team of wrecking balls. Okay, so first blood to Sefton, what did Hoylake have in reply? Well plenty of endeavour but sadly to little effect. Reece, playing his first game back after chickenpox, never took a backwards step and was aggressive in attack and certainly defence. Paul and Archie, Rudi and James did their level best to make inroads through the Sefton defence. Charlie, John and Jacob were always on hand to support their teammates and there was great commitment from Sam, Luca, George and Leon. However, Sefton have clearly worked hard in the intervening months since the teams last met because they were supremely organised in November but have since added tackling skills to make Andy Farrell weep with joy. Not only were they getting stuck in but their tackling technique was one for the video analyst (who was spotted on the touchline with an ipad!). When Sefton under 9s watch the game in their post-match debrief (after their ice baths, naturally) it will look like Mary Poppins. For Hoylake however it will look like A Nightmare on Elm Street……. A fair bit of fun but a horror show nonetheless!
The first game witnessed Sefton scoring 8 tries in all – 6 in the first half alone where Hoylake were unable to score a single try although Reece went mighty close in the corner at the end. The second half was better after the traditional Kev hairdryer treatment because George scored an amazing try following a great galloping, swerving run through the middle of the Sefton Iron Curtain and James powered his way through and round it to score near the corner.
Fortunately for the under 9s they have a coaching staff that are as hardened, experienced, grizzled and tenacious as a bunch of green bananas and so it was up to the travelling Hoylake Faithfull to cajole their young stars-of-the-future to have another go. And to their credit the youngsters did not take much persuading but if you have seen the Police Academy movies, it was a bit like that – more of the same but worse each time. Sefton scored 8 in the match and managed to close Hoylake out again in the first half. Things looked ominous for Hoylake who seemed like they would fail to score at all if it weren’t for Archie saving the day to score right at the end of the game. Sefton would have scored 10 if James had not performed miracles by hauling down “the quick lad” just before the try line and crunching Sefton’s star player in the corner which sadly for Sefton resulted in him having to leave the field injured.
So there you have it dear reader, like Tony Underwood waiting to tackle Jonah Lomu at full tilt in the 1995 RWC, you probably knew this was going to hurt. And I am afraid it did. But like a vomiting bug that follows when the kids go back to school after Christmas, another game will follow next week and this one will be forgotten by all apart from coaches James, Kev and Si who will attend extra therapy sessions during the week.