YCAC captain “Slow” Joe Fisher has confided to me that it never fails to unnerve him when 45 minutes before matches he sees our opponents undergoing organized and thorough warm-ups with large squads while he is reduced to counting heads and trying to work out how to reshuffle the team to accommodate the handful of players who haven’t turned up. However, despite the well-documented issues with timeliness that many YCAC players suffer from on Sunday mornings the team nearly always performs once the whistle blows and thankfully this match ended up being no exception.

The star of the show for YCAC was veteran halfback Dougal “Big Daddy White Serevi” Robertson who rolled back the years in this match to score a hat-trick of tries and show glimpses of the form that made him the YCAC Player of Decade (2000 – 2009). (The fact that I have just made this award up should not diminish in the least any pride Doogs feels in receiving it.) Given that he has a French wife and a suspiciously French-sounding son (Gaspard) this was also an exceptionally brave performance from the White Serevi – he probably got rewarded with a baguette over the head for his efforts when he got home.

In addition to Doogs, our ‘Super Size Me’ Americans (prop Erich “Freezer” Friess, prop “Big” Luke Raimo and No. 8 Aran “Two Inches” Delaney) all had strong games. Aran and Luke both scored tries and were said to have celebrated after the game by ordering extra helpings of “Freedom” fries to go with their cheeseburgers. Erich of course did not score a try. However, he did immensely enjoy the physical contest at scrum-time with his opposite number (All France captain Matt Rosenberg) and a bit of argy-bargy with the only other guy in the All France team that he knows (lock Matthieu Vignaud) and for Freezer that is as good as a try.

Our ‘Regular’ size Americans were also prominent with flanker Brimman “Brutus” Frazer making plenty of strong runs on attack and winger Chris “The Alpha Male” Mander scoring an excellent try down the sideline. Unfortunately, this match was the final game at YCAC for Brimman and Chris who are leaving these shores to pursue their dream of living together on a ranch in Kazakhstan. YCAC will miss you guys for your consistent performances week-in and week-out but we wish you crazy cowboys all the best for your new life(style)!

However, as so often happens, at the same time as we were farewelling the Californian couple we were welcoming a new player – NZ lock Sam “Tall Timber” Stephens – to plug the gap. (Although we hope for his own health that young Sam won’t be plugging every gap that Mander and Frazer did during their time in Tokyo). Freezer Friess was especially welcoming of Sam, figuring that with so few games left in the season he had found a fellow bagel-eater in the tight forwards. You can imagine his disappointment then when the big Kiwi dotted down mere minutes after making his debut for YCAC …

Hunter Hemingway