Pentyrch U15
South Coast International Rugby Festival Report
17 April to 19 April 2009
17 April 2009:
It was 10.30 a.m. precisely according to Tick Tock the tour timekeeper when the tour bus departed Pentyrch RFC with a 49 strong party consisting of players, coaches, H2O carriers, medics, idiots and supporters alike.
The customary silly hats were on full show and the bling jewellery dazzled the many onlookers that only wanted to watch the bus leaving Pentyrch to satisfy themselves that most of the village idiots would be away from Pentyrch for at least 3 days.
At 10.45 a.m. it was the first rendition of the now legendary tour song, “Shoesy Don’t Take Your Love To Town”, by the one and only Kenny Rogers (I think it was the B side to The Gambler !).
At 11.15 a.m. Shoesy decided to open his slab of lager and duly offered a can to each of his fellow coaches. If only they had known that he was going to moan about not having one back all weekend then surely they wouldn’t have taken one.
A quick stop in Magor services to pick up young Elliott Jones, who had flown in from Texas especially to go on tour wearing his pink cowboy hat and girlfriends suspenders and the bus was off again.
It was midday when the Pentyrch bus pulled in to Reading services. As the doors flew open you could see the Pentyrch faithful all running to the entrance of the services painfully wondering whether to hit the overpriced restaurant or the toilets first. It was a split decision.
After a laborious journey down the M25 the bus finally arrived at Pontins, Camber Sands. Room allocation was swift and deadly with a number of supporters wrestling with players to ensure they had the back room with the two single beds and the window and not the 1956 deluxe sofa bed. Supporters 1 players 0.
A quick tour around Pontins saw the group finally meet in the grand hall about 7.00 p.m. Cookie, who had by this time drunk 3 of Shoesy’s cans and had been berated for 6 hours for not buying one back decided to hit the Kronenburg 1664 and regretted it until about 14.30 p.m. on Saturday.
The boys, fully refreshed from a dip in the pool, decided they would watch the 10.30 p.m. cabaret that evening and the singer, who decided to go back and change into something more appropriate (ie clothing), after she realised her fans consisted of a bunch of 15 year old rugby players, duly sang the night away.
Before bed time however, the tour cabbage, who had watched PLAY SCHOOL too much as a child, decided that today we were going through the square window. Tour joke that one !
18 April 2009:
At break of dawn there was a smell of bacon coming from room 662 and massive laughter coming from room 666 as Cookie realised that Bernie had one eyebrow less than he did when he went to bed. This turned to complete panic however as Cookie ran to the bathroom to check his own eyebrows ! It was soon back to laughter though as mirrors don’t lie and a full set of eyebrows were in tact.
8.30 a.m. and the bus leaves for Ashford RFC for the opening rounds of the festival. The TYRCHS, who were in a group of 6, had 4 matches to play that day and were well up for it by 10.00 a.m. after the traditional Welsh rugby team warm up consisting of 10 press ups, a cheeseburger, 2 hot dogs, a couple of leg raises and a Lucozade Sport.
As the supporters hit the beer tent, it soon became apparent that the Scrumpy Cider, that was on offer at £2 per lethal injection and was a mere 8.5%, would cause some complete damage in the Pentyrch supporter ranks and it certainly did that. The only good part about this was the players soon learnt that when they were old enough to drink, then cider is not a good session drink.
The Games:
Pentyrch 25 Chosen Hill 5
The opposition started strong but were no match for an extremely dominant Tyrchs team that wanted to run the ball at every opportunity. Chosen Hill had come to the tournament with a reputation as being one of the strongest teams in the West Country and learnt quite quickly that if you go a bit further West and over the bridge then the teams are even stronger. The only disappointing thing about this game was the injury to Lloyd James who would see no more of the tournament but plenty more of the pool and cabaret acts !
Pentyrch 20 Colchester 0
An extremely aggressive Colchester side were next up and showed the young Tyrchs exactly how they wanted to play when their number 8 stamped on Alex Moore’s head when he was trying to get away from a ruck. The Tyrchs became a much more physical side in this game after that and matched the opposition in every tackle and contact to the dismay of the opposition. Two quick tries by the Tyrchs saw Colchester crumble and two more finished them off with the Tyrchs bruised, but deserved winners
Pentyrch 40 Midhurst 0
The organisers moved the Tyrchs to pitch 5 for this game which was a meadow with no rugby posts and which you could only get to by following the yellow brick road, jumping across a stream and then climbing over a bridge. Still, the Tyrchs, who were now in full flow, started the game at a fantastic pace and notched up 8 tries in a comprehensive victory. The only disappointing part to this game was Keiran Williams’s extremely poor landing on his double summersault celebration of the 5th try which the judges awarded 4.1, 4.2, 3.4 and 2.3.
Pentyrch 35 Beckenham 5
Prior to the Tyrchs final game of the day the referee approached the Pentyrch coaches to say that the side they had just beaten 40 – 0 had beaten the side they were about to play 50-0. The referee therefore decided to play 1.5 minutes for the first half and 2.3 minutes for the second half which meant the Tyrchs could only score 7 tries.
This particular game will be remembered by so many for so many different reasons. The players will remember it because they did everything in their power to send the young Cookie, their fellow under 14 clubman, over for a try and the coaches will remember it for the absolute ridiculous passes being made and the stupid angles of running that were also being made to achieve just that. That said, 2 minutes left and a bazaar run from Ryan Ali saw an even more bazaar pass across the line which eventually saw the young Cookster scamper over from 7.4 yards out to crash over in the corner for his first try for the under 15’s (but not his last Shoesy !)
The final game now over and it was a mad rush off the meadow, over the bridge, across the stream, down the yellow brick road and passed Owens and Simmons in the Cider tent and back to the clubhouse to watch the Blues thump Gloucester. What made this match even more enjoyable was the team from Gloucester that had sat down in the clubhouse to watch the game with the Tyrchs slowly disappeared as the Blues try count steadily increased. Wales 2 England 0 today I think.
5.00 p.m. and back on the bus for a return to Pontins where a very nervous under 15 team awaited the Kangaroo Court at 7.00 p.m., Judge Death Row Simmons presiding. As the crowd gathered outside room 662 the words that would echo in the thoughts of many duly came – “Please be upstanding for the Judge”. Simmo, clad in a judge’s robe, a wig from Amadeus Beethoven the movie and Dee’s salad crusher came into view of the awaiting crowd to a deafening silence.
Simmo then proceeded to shock the fathers with his depth of bad language which the players were only too aware of course as they had said many similar words on the bus. One by one they were ridiculed and made to drink Fizzy Coke and Crushed Crackers whilst singing the tour song (and a few others about the tour committee !)
It was then the guiding light appeared in the form of Father Ted Barrett. As he came around the corner, with Pete Owen still singing the same song he had been for the last 6 hours, he received a damning report from the judge for being late and was duly made to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep. The crowd, who were a verse ahead of Father Ted of course, all waited for the line of the night – TREE BAGS FULL. There was uproar.
With everyone in stitches, the judge left the courtroom and the players scattered as they had heard that night’s act were 4 twenty year old singers who did not care too much for clothing – and they were girls thank God. If only they had run that quickly on the pitch they would have scored twice as many tries !
As the players left for the Chicks Aloud concert, the fathers duly met in the local pub to meet the villagers and exchange pleasantries. The pub, which was about 4 light years past Pontins and in a galaxy far far away was probably the weirdest pub we had ever drunk in. The pub lounge looked like a cross between a carnival back room and a scene from the deliverance and it got steadily worse as the night went on. A quick decision to return to Pontins was a welcome one and we all ran home except Owens of course who did not have the legs to get there in the first place !
19 April 2009
The smell of bacon was not coming from room 662 this morning as Owens could not lift his head from the pillow let alone raise a rasher of bacon.
8.30 and the boys were packed and the bus loaded and we were off to Ashford for the final pool game and the finals.
The same warm up was religiously followed as it seemed to do us well the day before and we were on the pitch for the first game, hot dogs in hand !
The results:
Pentyrch 10 Bracknell 0
The final pool game saw a shaky Tyrchs side grind out a win against a team that they should have scored more against. That said, all credit to Bracknell, they wanted to beat the young Welsh team who as yet had not been beaten and they did everything in their power to do that. Some tough tackling from the Tyrchs and a try each side of half time however saw the game won and the Tyrchs were crowned champions of group A.
Semi Final
Pentyrch 25 Trojans 5
The semi final was eagerly awaited and the Tyrchs played the runners up in group B. The ref called the Pentyrch coaches over and explained that as the Trojans only had 14 players due to injury, the Tyrchs were allowed to play with 15 players but could not have any subs even if injuries occurred ! Baffled by the rule, the Tyrchs offered the Trojans a player to make them up to 15 on the proviso they could use their subs and the Trojans and ref duly accepted.
Big hand for Moggsy here as the Tyrchs had 4 injuries in this game and if it wasn’t for Moggs they may have found themselves going home early.
As it was, 2 tries after 2 minutes saw the Tyrchs take control and from then on they always looked like the side that were going to win with another 3 tries coming during the game.
The Final
Pentyrch 10 Shelford 0
Shelford, it must be said, are the Cambridgeshire champions and have lost one game in 2 years. They were also the Northampton Saints tournament winners 2 weeks before and had 6 County players in their starting 15.
The game started at a frantic pace and the tackle count must have been 65 Pentyrch 65 Shelford at half time with the score 0-0.
Although the Tyrchs coaches felt their team were good enough they knew they had to play at their best and continue with the performance of the first half to beat this very strong team from Cambridge.
Some early pressure from Shelford saw the Tyrchs awarded a scrum on their own 22M line. As the ball went blind, their young full back Tom Lewis ran 70 yards to score under the posts.
The best thing about this try was that in the event of a tie the first score counted double so the Tyrchs knew that Shelford would have to score twice to win. Also, if anyone saw Barrie Lewis jumping up and down between the posts as his son was running toward the line then you would have thought he had just bought a round !! He was frantic !
The Tyrchs started getting the upper hand by now and were hitting everything that moved and forcing many errors in their opposition. A ruck 2 yards from the Shelford line then saw their Captain Shoesy dive through the middle for the second score and the game was over. Credit to both sides here however as the game was extremely well contested by both teams but the Tyrchs just had the edge we thought.
After the whistle blew, Death Row Simmons called all the boys over to congratulate them and he nervously showed them the tattoo he had received the night before across his derriere which simply stated Pentyrch Champions. Relief indeed for a judge that would not have got his pants down unless the Tyrchs had won. Well done Simmo !
Back to the announcer’s tent for the trophy presentation and what a trophy it was. 17 foot tall and about 6 foot wide !! So big in fact we had to hire a trailer for the bus to bring it home.
A few celebratory drinks in the clubhouse saw the Tyrchs leave Ashford at about 4.30 p.m. for the long drive home. As the bus left Ashford RFC the lyrics of Delilah could be heard everywhere and a very proud Tyrchs team with full support went home.
Before arriving home though it was one final version of the tour song and then all the boys put some money in the bag for the driver. Barrie provided the plastic bag of course !
Full Tour Party:
Players: Coaches:
Alex Moore Jamie Hughes Swiss Tony
Ben Cooke Barrie Lewis Big Lew
Cain Johnson Steve Cooke Slice 1
Conor Barrett
Elliot Jones H2O:
George Crews Bernie Murphy Sexy Lady
Geraint Harcombe
Huw Gallivan Medic:
Jack Logan Bal Ghuman Deep Heat
Jordan Davies
Jordan Hughes Supporters:
Jorge Powell Pete Owen Short Stack
Joshua Simmons Shaun Simmons Death Row
Keiran Williams Trevor Gulliver Tick Tock
Keiran Macnamara Adam Ali Madam Ali
Lloyd James Luis Tobenas Flippin Eck
Luis Tobenas Kevin Garabowski Petrocelli
Luke Williams Huw Davies Mr Speaker
Matthew Thomas Peter Thomas Top Deck
Michael Owen Roger Perks Bling Bling
Michael Perks Graham Perks Uncle Albert
Morgan Rees Andy Young Splish Splash
Oliver Young Jason Ovens INSET Day
Rhys James Ceri Hughes Ms Demeanor
Rhys Hughes Mike Simmons Tony Dallas
Rhys Owens Ted Barrett Father Ted
Ryan Ali
Thomas Murphy
Tom Lewis