Fond Farewell

This bloke drank your beer
Photo by Jess, uploaded by Tom.

Stoort gives 'em his angry eyes
Photo by Jess, uploaded by Tom.

So farewell then,
Stoort and Babs.

You were two blokes
from Ireland, who
played mostly sevens
and tens.

You stayed in Leo's
basement, and painted
lots of stuff.

Walls, not pictures.
Good training for
engineers.

Stoort. I passed to
you this one time
and you scored.

Nice one.

Yes. You always made it
to training, but Babs
tore his MCL.

Now all he can do
is drink beer.

No hard feelings, eh?


apologies to EJ Thribb

On the 7th Day, God played Rugby

Due to the worldwide shortage of referees and the poor planning of some of our opponents, two of our games are scheduled to be played on a Sunday. Both our first game at North Shore, and our home fixture against Seacoast have been moved to the traditional day of rest (or for some of you, the day of "even more rest than usual").

So, for starters, this means you're going to have to make peace with whatever god you follow. If this means you have to say a few Hail Marys, flog yourself, sacrifice a virgin or blow something up, get on with it. Do whatever you have to do with in the name of your respective higher powers (or wife, same thing) to ensure your availability, although my own experience tells me that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Secondly, this means you'll be going to work with fresher bruises than normal, not to mention a hangover, so you'll also need to do whatever you need to do to ensure a relatively undisturbed day. Might I suggest coming in and turning on your computer and scattering some important looking papers on your desk. Then walk around the office looking as stressed as possible (make sure everyone sees you) before buggering off to Starbucks for a couple of hours.

Just like a regular Friday actually.

Old Gold photos galore!

Dr. Ed, amateur Proctologist
Originally uploaded by tlovering.

Big ups to Jes for taking so many great pics of the Old Gold match, just like this one. Click on the image to get taken to our gallery and see lots, lots more.

Old Gold's Match Report - a rebuttal.

Rather than write an entire match report, it works out a lot easier for me if you would just go and read Old Gold's match report here, and then return to this post so I can point out to you some of the glaring inaccuracies.

OK, done that? Now where shall I begin?

Like any embedded reporter, Tim Day, the Old Gold match reporter, has a hard time seeing the woods from the trees. Clearly he enjoys his job too much to embark on any kind of soul searching analysis of the match, and prefers to spew the established OG wisdom about "solid hits, good runs and smart play".

I'll give him credit for acknowledging that we "scrummaged hard" and I can only assume that by "took us down in the lineout" he means that we completely dominated the lineout, stealing their ball even when they resorted to double-pumping. Where all that quality ball went is another question, but hey...

I will also concede his point that "Portland’s lack of subs started to play a toll on their ability to make open field plays where it counted." So for all of you who couldn't make it because you had to clean the basement, or because you just had that thing to take care of - I'll let the result rest on your conscience, rather than mine.

The report's most glaring economy with the truth however must be Tim's statement that, "The game remained clean apart from a few minor incidents which we have to give credit to both teams and the ref for a decent job, well done." Clean, perhaps by the standards of our usual encounters, but wasn't that you Tim who go a yellow card? Perhaps spending the last ten minutes of the game picking dasies in the try zone gave you time to reflect on the wisdom of the ref's decision. Just about the only smart one he had made all day. It's funny how the winning side always has less to say about the ref....

Naturally Tim forgets to mention the two tries that we scored ourselved to mark a late and spirited resurgence. The first came from Francis when the visitors were at last able to take advantage of some of that juicy lineout ball. A rolling maul gave way to a series of pick-n-go moves, with Francis proving unstoppable when falling over the line. The second try belonged to the wee Irish fella', Dungas, who got his just rewards for taking the game by the scruff of its neck. Yours truly fed him some sweet ball back inside off the back of the scrum, and he did the rest, carrying a couple of OG "units" over the line with him.

So there you have it. A much more even handed account of the game, and although OG had more points on the day, they were made to work for them all. Best of luck to them for the rest of their season, and if they win only one game, please let it be South Shore.

I love this game. But then again, I know the rules, and you probably don't.

Old Gold Departure

All of you coming to Old Gold tomorrow should be at the Park ‘n’ Ride on Marginal Way no later that 9:45am, ready for a prompt departure. If you plan on going their directly, here’s where we’re playing, and please let someone know that we shouldn’t wait for you.

Fall season starts tomorrow, and it’s like The Clash said:

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

New World Order

There are those who have a hard time letting go. Just because our leaders tell us that our old enemies are now our allies, it doesn’t mean that we feel differently about them overnight. Germans, Japanese, Russian, Vietnamese, Koreans (the southern ones), Argies, French, Irish (the northern ones), Iraqis (mostly), Iranians (completely), South Africans (the white ones), Serbs/Croats (the nutcase variety), Danes (the Viking kind), Italians (the Roman kind). Take your pick. Depending on your age, historical, geographic and economic circumstances, any or all of the above list may have been your mortal enemies whom you are now expected treat with trust and mutual respect. And don’t even get me started on religious persuasion.

To add to that list, and to our increasingly shades-of-grey world view, I submit the name of Old Gold. As most of the old gits like me on the club are fond of saying, we remember a day when up was up, only Alexis Carrington wore shoulder pads, and Old Gold were the team that you loved to hate. Victory was usually as much of a certainty as the manhole covers in the middle of their pitch. Well, the quality of their fields may not have improved, but it seems that all of a sudden they got a little good, we got a little worse, and it’s time to kiss and make up and turn our venom on South Shore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of South Shore, but as you can tell I’m having just a bit of difficulty with Old Gold as my new best friends. My feeling is that history will record this era along side those pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, and Neville Chamberlain assuring the people of England peace with Mr. Hitler. Any side that allows “do rags” is not to be trusted.

When it comes to Old Mould any respective difference in divisions means nothing more than ink on paper, and I hope they are not foolhardy enough to think otherwise. Nevertheless I find the lack of pre-match hype on their website down-right patronizing.

So, in this spirit of love and fellowship I expect to see you all there on Saturday, and in order to get them properly narked before hand, I suggest you go and fill out their lovely availability chart here. I’m sure they’ll appreciate knowing that you’re not available for any of their other games.

Practice tonight at 6 on the Fox. Be there if you want to see some minutes this weekend.