At last we could play rugby! Guildfordians Festival, great show from As and Bs

What a pleasure to be back on the green and pleasant rugby pitches, basking in a bright and warm Sunday morning sun to play rugby....

Well, scratch that for brown muddy pitches, some of them slightly flat, under a heavy grey sky and we get closer to the reality of today's festival at Guildordians RFC. However there was no denying the pleasure of being able to play competitive rugby once more.

And this was competitive! The A boys were off to a flying start with commitments from the forward at every ruck, good passing and running from the backs and a first, well deserved victory, against a first team (you can tell I have already thrown my programme...)

With the momentum from the first victory the boys put in a disciplined performance in their second game to be 2 out of 2 by mid morning.

Things got slightly more complex against a very well drilled Battersea Ironsides team. The fact that most of the coaches have had previous run-ins with one their coach was adding to the tension in, and outside the pitch. Fatigue, and some heavy play from the opposition (not always penalised by the ref) took their tolls and the injury list was growing rather too fast for our comfort. We lost that game 0-3 despite some gallant efforts from the boys.

It came to crunch time (no, not the one where France beats England) for our last game of the pool. We knew we had to beat Farnham to hope for a place in the final, and we knew the number of tries would be important. This was a much closer encounter than we hoped for however. The play was going back and forth for a while, with both sides tackling for dear life and attacking with aplomb. However our magnificent lads managed to find the right angle to break a resolute defence and win 1-0.

Later in the day we had to wait for the result of another game to discover our fate. It all rested on the finer points of the tournament rules. If the tries scored was most important then we were in the final. If the tries difference counted then we would play in the 3rd/4th place final.

As we discovered that it was the former we had the double joy of reaching the final AND meet our nemesis Battersea Ironsides again.

It was such a perfect setup for the big final, wind, driving rain, about 6-7 degrees and a formidable enemy. The boys rose perfectly to the occasion. Straight from the start a BI boy dropped the ball which gave us precious possession and territory. A strong scrum put us in a better position but a determined defence pushed us back until they turned us over and came onto our half.

We were playing the better rugby for a long time but couldn't find the gap, unfortunately BI could find that elusive gap and superb footwork from the backs created two tries out of nothing. 0-2 at half - time.

However our lads rose once more to the occasion, they kept the pressure on from the restart and BI was badly stretched on a number of moves. They managed to keep it together until a succession of straight runs got us 1 meter from their try line. From a distance one could only see a graceful entanglement of limbs, heads, torso and various unrecognisable body parts, known in the jargon as a ruck. Somehow out of this came Teddintgton with ball in hand to cross the line.

This set up a frenzy of attacks from our side in the last minutes with push after push getting us close to the promised land. Had Shakespeare been with us today I bet that the story line of Henry V would have been rewritten on the spot.

Alas, the time was running short and the referee blew the whistle as we were just in sight of a second try. Cue big disappointment for all the boys BUT they can all hold their heads high given the way they played against such a strong opposition.

Mention should also be given to the Bs who also had a great day to reach the final but were overcome by bigger stronger opposition, I'm not quite sure what they give them for breakfast but we should have some of that ourselves.

Thanks to all the coaches to get the boys rugby ready and to all the parents for giving their entire Sunday for the love of the sport.

The B team played their best rugby of the season in the Guildfordians B festival, playing some physical teams, some of which were A squads. If the A pitch was a Blue run, the B pitch was definitely a Red gradient.

We opened up with a comprehensive 4-0 win over Farnborough, followed by racing into a 3-0 half-time lead over Windsor playing down the piste. We held our own line uphill until the very last play to run out 3-1 winners.

Third up was Haslemere, who were the best side we played. In a close fought game we lost 0-1 to a breakaway try, and a draw was probably a fair result. In our final game we faced Old Alleynians and ground out a tough 1-0, featuring some heroic defending.

The same complex maths applied and the B team lost out to Haslemere on tries scored to drop into 3rd/4th place final.

The 3rd/4th game was played on the A pitch, in semi-darkness and now ankle deep in cloying mud. An exhausted side lost 0-2 to Cranleigh to end the day 4th out of 9. As we were left with less than 12 several players had to play in both squads....25 heroes in blue and gold
(thanks to Mark Jopling for the B write-up)

Let's bring on the rest of the season!