Carnoustie HSFP Rugby Club

A big thanks to Derek Bruce for comming up to training tonight to show us a few techniques in the art of scrummaging.

I have known Derek since I was 14. Playing second row behind a tight head like De Bruce was a pleasure. I couldn’t believe how much power I was putting into a scrum. The way ”I” pushed the oppostion off the ball.  If there was any sticky moments I could always count on Derek to help me out. Or should I say sort him out. He is an amazingly modest man who has never boasted in any way of his sporting greatness. I know, but if you speak to him, ask  he won’t tell you! Maybe Taylor Blackhall will. Hopefully.

Anyway as the title implies it was a great time playing with such legends.

Tonights session was a good one. The numbers were high even the though the night was bleak. Its a major phycological battle turning out ,we owe it to each other to keep the fire burning.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXlWYdodnc&feature=related

Text me your passport details

Passport number

Name

DOB

Expiry date of passport

07923365567

Maule here we come party on !

I haven’t posted for two weeks. I thought we needed a propaganda lock down after our trip to Pitlochry. Ha Ha.

The game against Harris was pretty intense. They were definitely up for it. Five minutes into the game their no 4 booted me in the face. What do I do? Bleed simples. I need to visit the dentist as my gum is damaged. My thoughts on the matter are. You play the game and you know the potential consequences. Throughout the years I have tried to play a hard game and have never strayed from the ultimate goal. VICTORY. That takes personal sacrifices like not retaliating  in any circumstance.

The first 50  mins of the game the Harris no 4 gave me constant verbal abuse with phrases like ”jog on” ”fat bastard” ”he doesn’t know what hes doing”.  The last 3o mins he seemed to run out of clever puns.

For the first time as a player, I watched three  Harris guys hassle the referee telling him to get on with the game. When one of our players was down injured. This situation reminded me of a pub football team. Their is no need for this.The theme continued when we had catered for the Harris guys to come down to the club.  It wouldn’t hurt to come down for one drink and a pie. Thanks to the players that did turn up.

It takes two teams to play and Harris  gave us such a tight game. No doubt this will be hotly contested at Elliot road one of my favourite grounds.  I wish Harris luck for the rest of the season and you better get the pies on as we will be down for a pint.

It was great to see all the guys that played yesterday. 2nds and 1sts it made me feel proud to be a member of our little club.

Our policy has been to praise the team and not individuals. Although I would like to thank Owen and Grant for leading from the front and Bill for his tireless work at training and on Saturdays. One more thank you Gwen for bringing on the water, its not as easy as it looks.

Well it felt like it. What a beautiful day, it makes you realise Scotland’s no as bad as abody makes oot.

I have heard some pretty phenomenal stories. You know the ones you hear and you think no way that can’t be true you look for confirmation from friends facial expressions. You look for evidence from friends that may have witnessed such an event. I heard one recent story and some of the people who were actually within 10 metres of the incident were in denial. Craig Dawson scored a try. Well done that man.

I thought he had the strut of a two pecker billy goat when I first saw him on Saturday.

Words are beyond all of us on our visit to Aloha. We entered the fray wondering what to expect. Like having a fairly decent hand in poker and not knowing what the enemy had in store. Well we didn’t fold we worked hard for 80 minutes and to be fair Alloa were very worthy opposition.  Sometimes we forget that a large percentage of games played in a season aren’t what could be considered enjoyable. Both teams wanted to play rugby.

The bus journey was a great night out reminding me of my youth galavanting all over Scotland with a bunch of psychos. We stopped at the Glencarse for a liquid refreshment and met up with fellow rugby boys Arbroath. The pub was jumping.

The will is there but the body is not, I decided to retire to the bus after a pint and a nip. Being slightly the worse for wear my senses weren’t as finely tuned, but I think  Stevie Wonder would have spotted a couple of commandos making their way carefully around the bus to let down the back tyres. I went out and said to the guy on his hands and knees looking for the valve ”that on a twin axle the valve is on the inside of the rim”.  Not good.

Panmure on Saturday!!!

What can you say. Discipline is everything ”ours is not to reason why, ours is to do or die”. I can’t remember what happened to them in the picture below. Go and jump in the Loch ”Yes Bill anything else”. Ewan must hold the record for getting sent off the quickest .He was only expressing his dislike for a heckler in the opposition forwards. The fist of fury speaks many words.

All you can hear in the background is ”A ball not B ball for gods sake”. How a simple instruction can lead to copious amounts of paracetamol dispensing.

Doing what the boss instructs to the letter can sometimes lead to untold disaster.

My favourite was a scene from a film called 51st state. When the gangsters assistant is told to take care of the chemist. 1min 35secs into the clip, Liverpool’s version of the big dapper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvtoUE1fD8

I had a great holiday, yet again seeking and soaking up culture beyond that of even Brechin. Tuscany was great and the birds were no bad. Daniel commented that Florence in particular was nice.

Well done to all for hacking out a result against the tartan shirted Bannockburn. Its not easy.

The story so far. Flights are booked

The tour party as follows

Jamie Bassett, Nathan Bowles,Bill Bowles,Neil Bremner,Colin Brennan,David Carnegie,Peter Christie,Ross Coates,Craig Dawson,Gavin Dissell,Steve Essex,Euan Fraser,Bill Gartley,Ally Hay,Scott Henderson.Owen Hughes,Stewart Howlett,Grant Langlands,Mike Lynch,Ally MacDonald,Stewart Millar,Chris Rankin,Grant Stewart,Bill Scott,Cailan Gordon,Dean Nicholson.

We need your passport details as all off the above have a flight booked.  The financial side needs a big push. Originally we asked for a payment of £62 to cover the flights booked. So far we almost covered the cost of flights by subsidising the total with the £231 made by the hard work from the boys running the barbacue and the door at the big gig. The flights were paid for by Heather 3 months ago.

We need to pay for a set of strips and transport along with hospitality gestures towards our hosts.

All things being equal we should have a total of £5200

The bottom line is a figure of £200 something which represents a full on weekend in a one horse town like Carnoustie.

Gav is organising a Karaoke night, followed by a Hog roast on fireworks night all in aid of the tour.

Come on guys get your Grans on e-bay.

As expected, we experienced a hard game against an in form team. It almost feels like we have a Derby game every Saturday. Well that’s because were in a regional league. Numb nuts. 

Arbroath obviously seems like the closest to the Shanwell by all of  0.3 of a mile. My favourite derby is up at Forthill. Even though its a 0.3 of a mile further its worthwhile getting a good kicking by some not so young farmers instead of battle hardened Marines. LOL.

I was speaking to Gav about a bet he had with his mate from Arbroath a healthy £20 for the winners of the match. I said to him ”if they were real men they should be betting for real”. What do I mean? Well whoever losses has to join the winners club. No doubt that would make for a very interesting challenge, perhaps to the death. Ha Ha.

Its great having these matches on our own doorstep.

Anyway the next test against Fife Southern was a tough one. Compared to last season they are a different unit. We played against the wind and all I could think off was turning around with the wind at our backs. The mind is a very mysterious thing. I thought we would have the Fifers on the rack, but it was as painful in the second half as it was in the first.

You can roughly guess that there will be 30 scrums in a game(”happy days”). Playing at loose head against a 5ft 5” tight head. I feel like I have gone 10 rounds with Roberto Duran. I’m currently writing this blog from Ninewells and I’m not coming back to Carnoustie until Craig Dawson gets his good self back to training.

I was thinking about why people play Rugby for Carnoustie. The reasons I play.

1 To better the club and see it raise its standard

2 I enjoy the apres side, Even though I seem to only last a couple of hours

3 I also think about cause and effect. If we progress it gives the kids something to aim for and makes all the coaches from Micros to Seniors jobs worthwhile. The foundation is there all we need is the effort from the senior players.

4 To create a successful history for our own club rather than helping others to excel.

See you Tuesday

Rules of engagment
1. No historical references to previous glories (Thanks for that Bruce)
2. Always realise in this case, what came first. The chicken or the egg? Well after a club survey its the backs.
3. Nobody is allowed to mention the recession.
4. Willie Colemans is limited to two jokes per game.
5. Points will be given to any player entering the club, who manage to avoid Jocks golfers gamble.

Rules can be changed or amended to suit.

The blog starts with some interesting stats.
Carnoustie travel to Cumnock and are deafeted by  our lack of preparation. We took around 4 hours to cover 130 miles. We had to stop at  this guys house by the name of Burrell. Someone said ” who is this guy, I have never heard of him before?”. We had a quick bite to eat in his dinning room and we were off. Full of cultural enlightenment.
Anyway we played we were beaten we had a ball at the club with some fantastic grub and drink. The bus journey home was full of debate and recitials of Shakespearean plays. I can’t remember Macbeth taking all his clothes off and sky diving from the luggage racks.
Our next game saw the great work that the team had put in over the summer. Well done. Something which is almost taken for granted ”an away win” O yes. I think Kinross were pretty shell shocked. I was very impressed with Ross at full back, his attacking style of play at full back was immense. The sort of play people would pay to watch. He told me that he wasn’t very good at kicking so he had no choice. LOL

Our first game against Blairgowrie was true acid test,  it gave us an indication that we were going in the right direction. An invisible force called fitness counts for a large percentage  of success. That and a great blend of enthusiasm, skill and knowledge. Things are on the up. There was plenty of shoe pie being dealt out, that’s what we have to deal with.  Part of the nature of the game, something that I wouldn’t like to encourage. I like to rely on my elusive pace.

The Waid game was a great surprise to us all. Historically a game against Waid is usually stuffy and very tight.  It could be put down to the weakness of Waid, there is nothing like putting oneself  down. A classic Carnoustie trait perhaps. Well I watched and noticed the crisp handling and hard work put in around the breakdown situations and the recycling of the ball. It was a pleasure to watch. Sometimes props moan about never getting the ball to hand. Well I have the answer, go and find it. How do I do that? Run.

One more thing about Waid, which I thought was pretty amazing, they were established in 1880. 

Montrose away. We knew its was going to be a hard game as experienced last year. I love the antipodean back row player that Montrose have. I have a reputation for not going through the gate, this dude was coming in from the other side of the field. He kept shouting their tiring. He was correct we were tiring of him not staying on his feet and handling the ball in the ruck. 

Montroses scrum half. A  great player, but reminded me of a bad cowboy with a 2 dollar pony. The 2 dollar pony being their forwards. They never got a rest, almost every ball was ran. Even from deep positions. I would like to thank Chris and Dave for treating us very kindly. God bless you kind scrum halfs. One more thing I would like to thank A N Other for an outstanding last try. He told me to add it to my try tally in case A N Gregory found out.  happy days

A sad day seeing our good friend Danie leaving for South Africa. You will be sadly missed. Thanks for being there for us. The best looking guy in the club is now me again. Thanks Danie. Your a player and a half.