Just like the YCAC sevens team the ROW were looking to continue their recent domination of there European counter parts. With the ROW pulling off some sly trickery last year they expected a full out assault from the hurting Europeans. In the lead up to the match the white flag from the Europeans seemed to be waving high, with the ROW organizes Dean (more injuries the Johnny W) Stallard and Erich (Oh Jesus I just spewed on myself) Friess very suspicious they weren’t giving anything away. The highlight of this was when Euro Captain Tristan (everything isnt fair) Fahy claimed that Aran (Pee in a bag) Delaney was Irish through a great grandparent.

Unfortunately Tristan lived up to the Irish reputation of being slightly clueless and with a quick research of the Irish Government website the following information came to light –

“Unless at least one parent or grandparent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth, you cannot claim Irish citizenship on the basis of extended previous ancestry (that is, ancestors other than your parents or grandparents). In addition, you cannot claim Irish citizenship on the basis that relation such as a cousin, aunt or uncle was an Irish citizen if none of your parents or grandparents was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth.”

Funnily enough after sending this email we never heard another word on Aran, the final straw for the Euro side came when the usual and beloved ROW v Euro referee Steve (Fairest referee in town) Lewis was suddenly called away to India for rugby duties. With the game in danger of collapsing due the Euro being able to organise sufficient numbers it was agreed the generous ROW would help them out by lending a few players on the day.

On the day of the match the teams were sorted after a group warm up and the debut referee Tommy (normally cant see much) called the two captains. Before this he had a quick conversation with Dean (more injuries the Johnny W) Stallard and then Tommy yelled for the ROW captain turned and yelled “Scum Captain please” I have no idea where he got this from. The match was much tougher than anticipated led by the fiery Euro stalwart Fraser (Has more holidays than the Queen) Jamieson, the ROW taking a narrow 17-5 lead at Half time. The lead was quickly slashed with Arnaud (Grand Slam) Terrien finishing off a well worked try in the right hand corner – for a slight moment and only slight the Euro’s could smell a major upset brewing.

Unfortunately for them from the try restart the ROW re-gathered and proceeded to blow them off the park, some great tries were scored with Griffo (I didn’t do it) Griffin exacting revenge on a late hit by Fraser (Has more holidays than the Queen) Jamieson by running right at him and with the slightest move to the right out pacing a red face Fraser and putting Dixie under the posts. Surprisingly enough Tommy (cant normally see) did a very good job and the ROW will admit they hope next year Steve (fairest referee in town) Lewis gets called away suddenly again. No team had completed the Panty Shield hatrick until the ROW team of 2010, all the boys gathered for the presentations a few beers had before all heading in to Andy’s on the train.

For the sake of the Euro’s the ROW hope in the next 12 months they can produce some quality players for the YCAC that they can use at next years Panty Shield! Until then they will have to live with the taste of defeat and knowing that next year we will be looking to win for the fourth year in a ROW!!!!

Regards

Dean

Rugby can be quite a dangerous sport. Minor injuries (bumps, bruises, cuts) are par for the course and serious injuries (broken bones, torn muscles) are not uncommon. However, in this match we found a simple solution to minimize injuries: Nobody was allowed to tackle. The IRB has actually been trialling this idea quietly in a few Super 14 games this year (Chiefs 72, Lions 65) and we decided to give it a whirl at YCAC in this match. It ended up being quite an enjoyable game …

YCAC also adopted another tactic for this match which international rugby has introduced to the game in recent seasons: Rotation. There were a total of 16 changes from the Crusaders match the previous weekend and when the squad only has 17 people in it that is really saying something. Indeed, the only player involved in both this match and the Cru fixture was the indispensable captain “Slow” Joe Fisher (or Pro Joe as he has started calling himself after his recent elevation to coach of the 7′s squad). Anyone who has seen Pro Joe on the field knows that he is certainly not indispensable because of his playing abilities, rather it is simply that he is responsible for ordering the drinks after the match and nobody else knows the tab number!

As is often the case with rotation, this match saw a few interesting positional selections and one of YCAC’s more unusual backlines in recent times:
* A halfback and flyhalf combination who had never played in those positions before (“Caviar” Ken Noguchi and Arnaud “Mature Big Daddy” Terrien).
* An inside center who is normally a winger (Andy “Tristan’s Mate” Kennedy) and is soon to join Noah “Just a gigolo” Pflaum as a topless model at Abercrombie & Fitch (that doesn’t affect his rugby ability but couldn’t be left out of the match report).
* A back three who all normally play in the loose forwards (Jack “I’m so flexible I can give myself a …” Hatch, Callum “The Kid” Snowball and Taichi “Posh Spice Junior” Noda).

Indeed, the only player with any experience in his position was outside center Matt “Posh Spice” Dimond, who was a rock in the midfield and made several strong breaks, but he has experience in every position so that is not saying much. However, everything turned out well on the day with Ken and Arnaud instantly displaying a level of non-verbal understanding exhibited by all the great 9-10 partnerships and Arnaud making full use of his French flair to keep the opposition guessing and run in a hat-trick of tries for himself. Could this be the start of a Gregan-Larkham-like on-field relationship?
(Actually, this quick bonding between Ken and Arnaud is not that surprising really if we remember that it was this combination working together that achieved what everyone at YCAC thought was impossible – finding someone who wanted to marry Ken.*)

In front of all this razzle and dazzle from the backline was some excellent work by the forwards. The YCAC scrum was very dominant, as is normally the case when Yoshio “Nike” Naiki is in the side. In addition to his normal powerful performance in the tight, Nike also made several big runs in this match. Not to be outdone by his fellow front-rower, hooker Mike “Masivo” King made one spectacular open-field steal and then promptly subbed himself off so as to quit while he was ahead. However, the star of the forward pack was lock Sam “Tall Timber” Stephens who got through a heap of work in the tight but also managed to get wide enough to score a couple of good tries. He did go on to lose the MVP drink-off but there were extenuating circumstances – his opponent was clearly a drink-off veteran (having been selected by the opposition specially for the task) and engaged in some extreme psychological warfare by stripping off to the waist and requiring the skull to be done with the contestants arms interlinked.

Finally, this game saw a return from injury for flanker Aminiasi “Mini” Momo. It is actually amazing that he got to the game at all after emailing Simon “SS” Litster to find out the details and SS confusing him with a girl he knows called Mini. The big flanker did think it was very kind of SS to offer to buy him “a nice dinner and a bottle of wine” but was slightly confused by the offer to “head back to my place afterwards to get to know each other better”!

Hunter Hemingway

* Caviar Ken’s wife is good friends with Arnaud’s wife and she and Ken met at a party hosted by Arnaud.

Changing the pitch from grass to artificial pitch was supposed to take Mother Nature out of play. However, poets warn of the dangers of a woman scorned and Gaia has certainly wreaked her revenge this season by ensuring weather conditions heavily influenced several of our bigger fixtures. For example:

* Our game against the Nagoya Barbarians was plagued by such a freak storm that we were reduced to offering up a shirtless Vicar holding an aluminum touch flag as a lightening rod sacrifice.

* The Tokyo Gaijin match was so cold that the entire YCAC team were seen sticking their hands down their pants at every break in some kind of pagan fertility ritual.

* Finally, this match was saw a wind so strong that a five point difference at half-time led to the strange sight of the winning team despondent and the trailing team buoyant.

(Interestingly enough, all of these matches were against foreign teams. This makes me doubly suspicious that there was some kind of divine intervention involved. Maybe the Japanese rugby gods have decided this is the season to start punishing the gaijin teams for our sacrilegious ways – no training sessions, pre-match warm-ups of less than one hour, no lengthy post-match debriefs, no tears in either joy or victory, occasional trimming of the hair which grows in our nether regions, etc.)

As alluded to above, after playing the first half with the wind at our backs we took a five point lead but also a general feeling of disappointment into the half-time break. This may have been partly because we were feeling the absence of our talismans (Rhino, Vicar, Buffalo Butt, SS) on the sidelines. However, much of the credit for YCAC’s lackluster first half must go to the Cru. They turned up with a large squad (reinforced by a few Navy players) and for the first time in a couple of years we got the sense that they really believed they could win this match. Luckily YCAC shook off their lethargy during the break and came out firing in the second half with a couple of quick tries to put the result beyond doubt.

In terms of individual performances, the two cuzzy bros (No. 8 Steve Gray and winger Eps Tuibenau) were both in fine form, each bagging a brace of tries. However, it must be recorded that Eps did blot his copybook after the match by losing the MVP drink-off to the Cru prop Pete Bruin and in so doing breaking YCAC’s amazing run of 10 consecutive drink-off victories.

In terms of individual moments, none was bigger than the second-half try scored by veteran lock Stephen “Hang Time” Marcon. Although this try was important in the context of the match its real value was that it removed Marcon from the list of Golden Bagel recipients, which is quickly shrinking to feature only one man, the inventor of the award (oh, the irony), Erich “Freezer” Friess. Freezer’s growing desperation can be seen through his claim that as he personally did not witness Marcon’s try (he was at the bottom of a ruck at the time) he needs Marcon to produce pictorial or videographic evidence of the actual act of scoring before he can be officially removed from the list.

Hunter Hemingway