Like a mother giving strict orders to her horny 16 year old daughter before dropping her off at the school dance, YCAC’s coach Simon “Mother” Ryan demanded that his players “keep your mouths shut and don’t talk back” as they ran onto the field to play their final pool match of the Kanto Top League against Mandara. And just like the daughter, the YCAC players soon ignored the motherly advice and had their tongues flying only minutes after kick-off. Unfortunately for YCAC, this lack of discipline against the match officials meant contributed to YCAC being penalized at least every few minutes throughout the entire game.

Prior to kick-off the brains’ trust of YCAC had carefully considered its game plan as they watched an enthusiastic Mandara team, complete with a shadow XV to train against, warm up for two hours. At the same time the brains’ trust surveyed YCAC’s starting XV and it wasn’t long before they realized that the motley crue of smokers, binge drinkers and bullsh*tters lazing around front of them had no plan in life and as sure as hell weren’t going to follow any game plan in a rugby match.

Luckily for YCAC, the referee already had a plan and after conceding yet another penalty in the opening minutes, YCAC knew that going would be tough. Usually in such circumstances, it’s expected that the tough get going. Which is exactly what happened. Forwards and backs alike, YCAC turned-out an aggressive and fearless display of defence which thrilled the 11 YCAC supporters watching on. Few tackles were missed in a dogged display of courage under fire.

However, Mandara’s continuous attack did have a casualty midway through the first half with Aran Delaney taking what he thought was heavy artillery shelling at a ruck. The only trouble was that no one, including Del himself, knew what part of his body was missing, bleeding, dislocated, and/or broken. The result was like Del had been tasered by a sniper. As the electrical current surging through his body Del went from standing to lying on the ground, back to standing, to lying… all the while as he spasmed and contorted into a hundred different positions clutching wildly at different body parts in a high-tempoed solo version of the kama sutra. Language spewed forth from his mouth that no one had ever heard before – YCAC’s favourite evangelist had been overtaken by the devil.

After a few minutes Del finally had his body back and the team had Del back. Still perplexed by the demonic possession they had just witnessed, Mandara were at their weakest and Steve Gray was all too happy to exploit a gap out wide, a considerable distance from the maul he should have been in, to score a well-worked try. The points gave YCAC a lead of 5-0 at halftime.

YCAC’s fearlessness also transferred to the scrum where the much vaunted Mandara front row containing two ex-professionals were hammered by their opposites in Nike, Yosuke and Dean. After two conceding two tightheads out of two scrum feeds, Mandara decided that the only way to save face was by collapsing the scrum. The referee, feeling empathy with the face-saving gesture, penalized the Viagra-driven YCAC scrum as it stood standing firm while the Mandara front row flopped on the ground in front of them begging for mercy.

On the contrary, there was no show of mercy and when not giving away penalties, YCAC was able to lay on a further 24 points in the second half with the tries being deservedly shared between the piggies and the Porsches. Special plaudits go to YCAC’s back three of Eps, Arnaud and Joe Naulu who all had an industrious day and contributed on the scoreboard.

However, the most special mention must go to South African lock Sias Potgieter in the last play of the game who aptly summed up YCAC’s never-say-die attitude. Standing on the wing (where he had observed other forwards stealing tries), Sias sensed a meat-pie could be his if the cards fell the right way. They didn’t and the ball was soon making its way along the opposition plains where it reached Mandara’s winger. The winger, sleek as an antelope, saw the big hippo gazing at him and galloped around his outside and down the touchline on the way to the tryline. Little did he know that he’d just fallen into a crafty trap by the wise old hippo who thundered after him licking his lips. Closer and closer Sias got until it was now-or-never and the hungry hippo launched himself at terminal velocity onto the hapless antelope. The earth shook as Sias landed with a almighty thump onto the ground and the ball spilled out quietly over the trickle of blood coming from the lifeless antelope. Sias had just saved a certain try, the game was over and YCAC had qualified for a promotion match to the first division of the Kanto Top League.

In the worst weather for a rugby match held at YCAC in living memory, YCAC retained the Gareth MacFadyen Cup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GM_Cup) to extend its winning streak over the Crusaders to four years. The GM Cup has long been the pinnacle of the rugby year for both teams but given YCAC’s heavy diet of Kanto League games the sole emphasis on this game has diminished in recent years for YCAC. This was illustrated early in the first half with the Cru fired up from kick-off and YCAC struggling to name a starting XV only minutes before.

YCAC had a howling wind at their backs in the first half but largely failed to use it. Instead YCAC’s fly-half Kane “the Weasel” implemented a similar strategy that he’d found useful on his recent holiday to Phuket: throwing his balls in any hole that looked open. The only difference at YCAC was that no one was there to catch his balls but the result was the same with Kane having to stand-in-line and wait for his medicine. This time he was waiting under the posts after a Cru try rather than at a back-street clinic but the conditions were nonetheless as grim.

While Kane’s mind stayed on holiday, YCAC’s forwards galvanized into a storming unit at the set pieces and had the Cru backpeddling at scrumtime. On more than one occasion the YCAC forward back destroyed the Cru’s scrum which was even more remarkable when looking at the man-mountains at the Cru had in their forward pack. Unfortunately for the Cru those forwards were also mountains in the lineout and remained firmly attached to the ground. This enabled Joe “Float like a butterfly” Fisher to steal the opposition throw almost at-will.

Except for the set pieces, the first half dragged on with little shape from YCAC but credit must be given to some determined Cru defence. The Cru were thriving on the looseness of the game in general play and pressured YCAC into a number of mistakes and penalties. However, the Cru’s reluctance to scrum or kick the ball into touch meant that they had little option but to run the ball; a grueling ask into the wind and with Mike “not long until I have enough scars to look like Deano” Griffin constantly looking for his next hit.

Up 12-5 at halftime and turning into a wind that only seemed to get stronger, YCAC knew that the second half would be tough. Fortunately for YCAC, the forwards embraced the challenge and used the tactic of pick-and-go’s and one-off runners in broken play. This strategy starved the Cru of ball and worked superbly. The scrum continued its dominance and three tries were acquired by YCAC’s No 8, Joe “Sting like a bee” Fisher, through pushovers. The Cru consequently embarked on some devious gamesmanship and declared that the scrums had to be uncontested due to an injury to a prop. However, the only ‘injury’ to the prop, a former British judo champion in his first game of rugby, seemed to be to his ego but this didn’t prevent him from remaining on the field and playing by his own set of rules at each ruck and maul.

With the time counting down on the clock and YCAC up 22-5, the Cru scored a well-taken try after a sustained build-up. For those players on the field who had experienced the 2007 match where the Cru scored 19 unanswered points in the final 15 minutes to snatch victory, the feeling after the Cru’s try was either fear for a YCAC player or excitement for a Cru player. Thankfully for YCAC, the team did not panic and a final try to Griffo sealed the win.

The end result of the bruising encounter was a 27-12 win to YCAC. The celebrations of securing the GM Cup went well into the night which gave full respect to the significance of the game and also showed that the importance of victory is still as strong as ever.

“This morning I woke up with a little stiffy, with a slight ball-ache but had a smile on my face”. If you read your emails on Monday, you will recall that this was the first line from YCAC’s motivational guru Aran “Del” Delaney’s sermon following Sunday’s game against Toda over the Top. It was a somewhat unusual introduction to the pep talks to which we have become so accustomed after our league matches but it personified Del’s performance in YCAC’s first loss since the club embarked on the arduous road through the East Japan championships three years ago.

The match was billed as the unofficial curtain-raiser to the rugby world cup final being played later that day. The fact that the crowd was mainly comprised of Toda’s wives and girlfriends (WAGS) did little to dampen the teams’ spirits but actually turned out to be a cunning ploy to distract YCAC during its warm-up. It should also be noted that several YCAC regular players were absent due to their homosexual (and perhaps racial) desire to watch all black men in the flesh in New Zealand. These circumstances meant YCAC went into the game as firm underdogs.

Right from kick-off a high-tempo pace was set and that remained throughout the 80 minutes. YCAC drew first blood in the first minutes with a well-taken penalty kick but it was soon giving blood when YCAC’s captain Dean”o” Stallard received a nasty cut to his eye from the oppo’s Tongan missile. For the first time in years, YCAC was on the receiving end of some Pacific Islands’ fury and the aforementioned missile also unleashed several other big hits early in the game which clearly rattled YCAC. With Deano out of the game and off to hospital, the YCAC forwards lost momentum through the middle of the first half until Del stepped up. Sometimes referred to as the joker of the pack, Del took a star turn as the ace of clubs and produced a sublime mix of aggression, counter-rucking and tackling to almost single-handedly keep the opposition forwards at bay.

However, despite Del’s best efforts, Toda’s well-drilled backs (and a big fat prop on a 20 metre charge) took full advantage of some non-existent YCAC defence and went into the break carrying a healthy 33-8 lead. The score line at that time was not a true reflection of the battle and YCAC went into the second stanza with confidence that the wind at their backs would help reverse the damage on the scoreboard.

YCAC’s spirited comeback resulted in the team enjoying the majority of possession and territory but it did not result in enough try-scoring opportunities to ever challenge Toda’s lead. The forwards showed glimpses of galvanising into a unit and displayed several fine driving mauls from line-outs and continually recycled possession at ruck-time to great effect. The revised midfield of Mike “Griffo” Griffin and Ben “the Tokyo tan” Montgomery also combined well to produce a number of strong runs and resolute defence. Starved of possession and on the backfoot, Toda resorted to kicking at almost every opportunity; a stark contrast to the counter-attacking tactics they employed in the first half.

As the match wore on, Toda emptied its fresh-faced bench to inject new enthusiasm but such actions were never going to work for YCAC given that its three backs reserves had a combined age of over 120. On the contrary to playing, those three backs spent most of the game finding sunny spots on the sideline to warm their blood above freezing. When the final whistle did blow with the score at 47-22, the YCAC “modern day warriors” (quote Del) were well beaten but could take solace in their determined second half effort and the knowledge that Toda’s WAGS were staying for the aftermatch function.