What Goes on Tour stays on Tour

It was GCSE season. Kids were preparing for exams. Parents were shooting endless hours of footage to help get a grade 9 in GCSE PE. We had negotiated with the parents and cancelled a 3 day tour to warmer shores and agreed on a 90 minute drive to Banbury – which was further than our Monmouth-Forest snow tour in 2018.

We had played Banbury last season and beaten them 43-25 in an epic game. The best of Gloucestershire vs the best of Oxfordshire. This season Banbury had got stronger and were about to be crowned champions of the Tri-Nations – English version – Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire counties league champs.

Stroud had gone from strength-to-strength in 2019 but 2020 was proving a challenge with the Academy/GRFU players away and various injuries/absentees mounting. Stroud were down 10 starting players today with half the forwards away and most of the backs. Most of the coaches/medical staff away as well. It was going to be tough but if there is one thing Stroud did like that was a challenge!

Overnight more players had gone down with illness. 15 turned up after a long drive. No training or matches after 4 weeks of constant storms. Stroud U16s were coming off the back of 2 losses and a draw - even Liverpool had started losing repeated games - so the omens weren't great.

Eddie Jones was consulted as to how to adapt our 15 players into a new attacking force -it had worked vs Ireland. Jo’s Finishers became Phillips Starters. Just meant we had no Finishers. Didn’t even have a water carrier. Fortunately Finn answered the call-to-arms and played his 1st game in 10 months.

The weather was dry but blowing a gale. We needed some help...….

Be Kind !

…..was the motto for Glos vs Sale and now Banbury vs Stroud. They wanted revenge after last year. They had 20+ players and we had 15.

Be Kind !

We had them just where we wanted them…….

Be Kind !

Forwards: Bernie, Orgy, Lucas, Darion, Jedd, Harry, Stoner, Mr T
Backs: Hilly, Ryan, Alex, Finn, James, Euan, Flash
Subs: Diddly Squat – could have done with him actually…..

Stroud lost the toss and Banbury took the benefit of the strong wind behind them. So much for being Kind!

Stroud started well with good tackles from Finn, Bernie and Harry. The ball was knocked on and we won our scrum. Things were looking up. Captain Mr T was leading by example with powerful runs, good tackles and shouting constant encouragement.

Banbury might have scored – couldn’t see. We checked with the copious video footage and agreed that the refs restart on halfway was wrong and he should have given us a 22 drop-out. 0-0 game on!

Thumping tackles from Mr T and Euan interspersed by good runs from Finn and Jedd were the highlights. Flash doing well at the back with the long kicks threatening the Stroud try line.

The ref kept giving us kick-offs and not 22 drop-outs. We were confused. It was still 0-0 in our eyes. Perhaps Oxfordshire RFU were trying experimental World Rugby rules. Something called 50-20 we were advised of. Instead of a 22 drop-out we get a 50 yard halfway drop out ?

More highlights - Darion and Stoner chasing down escaping Banbury players and stopping them scoring tries. Ryan and Finn resorting to football skills and kicking the ball on and hacking into deadball area and unlucky not to score a try. Our GCSE footage definitely showed a blue hand in the mix.

Banbury were showing great skills in all phases of the game – forwards at the breakdown, kicking into spaces and catching cleanly, fast hands left and right. But they still hadn’t scored a try in our opinion…….apart from one great cross field kick that was caught at pace and legitametly scored under the posts. We went old school. Didn’t want to count points. Lets count tries like in the good old days. 1-0 to Banbury.

Another few minutes of frantic rugby and Stroud survived.

Half Time: Banbury 1 – 0 Stroud

The players asked for medical attention. Needed oxygen pumping into their lungs and sugar laden drips. None was available – Delia and Jenks had run away. It didn’t take time to organise the subs as none were available.

The 2nd half started and the pesky wind had dropped right off. We weren’t even getting the benefit of that behind our backs. Never mind we would still put in 110% effort.

Mr T carried on his storming performance – more tackles, bullocking carries and encouragement by the spade full. More last gasp tackles by Finn and Ryan to save tries. More strange local rules where a pile of Banbury players would fall into our try area in some strange dancing move and then the ref gave our players chance to drink bottles of water while the linesman waved their flag at some Banbury guy taking kicks at our posts and failing to hit the cross-bar. They must be doing GCSEs in Semaphore flag language and need the practice. Didn’t understand that. Still no tries scored from where we were standing…… We were still in the game.

Another 22 drop out from half way as the clock entered into the red. We asked the ref if it was last try wins and he agreed. Nice chap! We went on the attack and our scrum held strong and we earnt penalties to get closer to the promised land. We were close to the 22 and earnt a penalty. We eventually found the kicking tee and went to give it to Ryan to win the 2nd half 3-0 but the game had restarted 3 minutes earlier with a tap penalty. We lost the ball and tired legs couldn’t get back into defense quick enough and the Banbury player crashed through a gap and scored a try the length of the pitch. The ref blew for full-time. Denied at the death – how unlucky were we?

So much for Banbury Being Kind!

Full Time: Banbury 2 – 0 Stroud

We checked with the ref the final score. We disagreed. We called it 2 tries to 0, or negotiated it as 2 halves to nil. Either way we did agree that Banbury were deserved victors.

Team debrief was held and a tough day at the office was discussed. Everyone had done their utmost and put in a full blooded performance. Lucas was convinced he couldn’t play the whole game without a break – but had done a 70 minute shift. That takes character. Plenty of good footage for Finn, Bernie and Darion to pass their GCSE PE exam. Mr T should have taken PE. He was magnificent in all aspects. Grade 9 to you Sir !

The parents were discussing the good old times and wanting to go back to them. Jim reminisced for the days where Corona in the news meant a new brand of Mexican lager, Phil - showing his age - claimed it was kids pop from the 70s. The kids looked at us weirdly and said Corona is only famous as a virus.

Remember kids – it was a tour game. What goes on tour, stays on tour ! No one needs to know what really happened……

90 minutes later we finally got home and had forgotten what had happened. We’d have to rely on the accurate match report to remind us. And in true match reporter fashion everything I commit to print is legally binding and correct!

Thanks to Banbury for hosting us. 1-1 in the series so far. Next time as Colts we’ll host you at ours with full strength squads and have a decider to work out the Glos vs Oxon bragging rights. Best of luck in your league game next week and go win that Tri-Nations trophy !

Next week Worcester away – hopefully the River Severn will have subsided and we’ll be back to full strength with the missing Stroudies having a free Academy weekend and others will have recovered from illnesses.