I'll post a match report as Tom was unavailable with a hitch in his giddy-up over the weekend. In line with Tom's methodology I don't actually remember what the scores were or who scored, though this was due to blunt head trauma rather than excessive alcohol consumption. There were three games on this rather warm day at Amoskeag's nice facility. The Old Boys were up first and pulled off a victory, mostly through tactical kicking, curmudgeonly deception and dim flashes of recollected glory. Losing much of the game, Portland put together a brilliant display of rugby from under their own posts in the waning minutes that showed the extreme depths of the old boys' cunning, field sense and abject laziness. Long Jerry McQueeny clearing kicks; the pack ambling up to collect the line-out; a final scrum 20m out leading to a last spasmodic expenditure of the carefully hoarded energy: a Mike DeSalle pick-up, a Tim MacMahon duct-tape popping scamper and pretty-as-you-like back-line support for a try under the posts. Richard Pfeffer was named Man-of-the-Match for providing the very schwank tent (wait til you check it out) and the beer, as well as for his usual war-horse contributions.

The A-side game was somewhat of a rockfight. The pack did well and Portland scored three or four nice tries from tight play. The centers featured some new faces in Bernie and Pat, who did admirably well. The Amoskeag backs were on song though and carried the day. The evergreen Jerry Alves was his usual warrior self and garnered Man-of-the-Match honors. Joey D made his first visit to the sin-bin for tracking down an opposition player after the whistle to register various concerns on recent occurences. When the ref had the temerity to inquire after the motivation for such blatant head-hunting, Jerry reports that Joey's explanation was "I don't know... I just wanted to get him and hurt him." Note to Joey: while lying is not a good policy, it is considered acceptable to color the truth somewhat in these instances. It's called spin control, brother.

I didn't watch much of the 25 minute B-side game but my general sense was that everyone was knackered and it was a bit of a track-meet to Amoskeag.

The bus ride home was the usual delightful bonding experience, highlighted by many stories that began with that ominous phrase "So there I was..."