Having watched proud England suffer defeat at the hands of the Boks the night before, we were hoping that we would not suffer the same fate. Injuries and non-availability having robbed us of at least 4 experienced players. The beauty of the squad system however enabled us to leave the Moor for the away trip to the Park with 15 players.

Upon arrival at the ground, chief coach and brunt of most of my one liners (who till that point had given me nothing to write about) came good and announced he had to go home to collect his lad’s boots that he had forgotten. I had been eagerly partying the previous day, on the expectation of an England victory and then had to continue drinking my sorrows away, I felt lost and alone, and those screaming kids, oh the pain. I quickly gave team talk 3 (just go and enjoy yourselves and stick it up ‘em), before we went to warm up for the game.

Luckily we were met at Broughton by Dan Goodwin whose father (the dark arts teacher Tiny) had driven back from what appeared to have been an excellent night out. We gave club debuts to Pat and Oliver in the forwards and Bradley and Jake in the backs, well done boys you didn’t let us down.

From the off we played the attacking brand of rugby that people pay a fortune to watch, but consistently made a single mistake that let to their speed merchant in the centre running the length of the pitch, before we knew what had hit us we were 26 points down. Before the break a further try led to a lot of soul searching, and the rallying cry during the break was just play with pride. It worked, the forwards took the ball on, accurate kicking by Will Bailey keep them on the back foot, and it was long before Dan Goodwin crashed over for a try.

This was shortly follow by more pressure and again Dan was about to score when the ball came loose, (I feel his father’s dark arts teaching may have had something to do with this obvious jug avoidance technique), before he could regain it James (The Poacher) Bennett leapt like a tin of salmon catching the ball and diving over from a good yard out, this was converted by the ever-talking second row Alex Hardy.

Broughton came back scoring again before a bullocking run from our own Captain Caveman, Adam, kept our spirits high. Broughton scored the last try of the game to make the final score Heaton Moor 17 Broughton Park 45.

There were many excellent displays on the field, James Sinclair ran and tackled like a man possessed, and his try saving double tackle was a wonder to behold. Match of the match however went to Tom Critchley whose bullocking runs and powerful scrummaging may lead to the name ‘El Toro’

As we won the second half, and the sun was shining in October, and the day after England were yet again in a world cup final, I’ll put that one down as almost a victory. Well played boys, if the coaches had done a better preparation job, you may have done better. Maybe in future you need to warm yourselves up and do your own team talk and leave the old men to nurse their hangovers.

We’re back to training this week, and hopefully a number of those on the treatment table may be available for our next match.