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The sun shone (and the rain rained) on the righteous yesterday as the intrepid WFC squad selected for the Blairgowrie Tens Tournament stole the show by winning all four of their round robin matches against the varied opposition of Strathmore, Highland, Blairgowrie and The Black Watch.
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Arriving only 30 minutes before their first scheduled match in staggered car formation, with the Paulo "party car" bringing up the rear, the players quickly changed and then enjoyed a truncated Donnie "muscles" Macfadyen warm-up before tackling their first opposition of the day, hosts
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Blairgowrie - resplendent in their new kit.
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It appears that the new Blairgowrie kit needs some "running in" as the WFC squad dominated the 10-minutes each way 7s rules match, with self-converted tries from Neil Tweedie, Neil Malloy, and Sam Paulo (2). First blood to WFC - 28 - 0.
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The second encounter was against Highland, who impressed in their first game. The WFC squad were now well-warmed-up and the brilliant rolling subs strategy adopted by tactical supremo Macfadyen meant that both young stars in the making and several "more mature" players (e.g. Kinger and Captain Craig!) were able to contribute to the 7, 8 or 9 try to zero rout of Highland. "Why 7, 8 or 9 tries?" I hear you ask (well, not really, but you know what I mean). Your reporter for the day recorded 9 tries for this match - all signalled as given by the veteran referee. However, said referee only managed to record and report 7 of them - I think he was a bit overwhelmed by our pace (as was Highland!). For the record I think Stuart Mack (2), James White (2), Rob Tweedie, Neil Tweedie, Craig Buchanan, Eddie Crawford and Jonny Pelter were our scorers. Two out of two and a clean sheet defensively at the midpoint in the round robin almost brought a smile to Donnie's face.
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By now, we had all realised that the tournament clincher was our third match - versus The Black Watch (and apart from one player, they were mostly Fijian) squad. They had also come through their first two fixtures victorious and were clearly a well-drilled, ferociously fast, jinky outfit. However, Donnie had kept a close eye on them and had identified some potential weakness in their setup - "they don't like getting tackled early and hard, so let's tackle them very early - and very hard". The Black Watch were fast - and they quickly opened the scoring. WFC quickly "woke up" and started to put the aforementioned strategy into place - with the result that half-time saw us slightly in front following great tries from Rob Tweedie and Neil Malloy. The second half was very tense, with the Black Watch squad, both on the field and off it, very agitated and animated. A tough set of turnovers resulted in a breakaway try for them - 2 scores each. Now it was our turn to get agitated as the portly referee awarded us a penalty instead of playing advantage when we were on the point of scoring, then disallowed a further WFC score for dubious reasons (in my ever so humble opinion).
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Donnie's rolling subs tactics now started to pay off and with moments to go Eddie Crawford scored an unbelievable(-ly good) breakaway try, shrugging off two (or seven, if you listen to him) opponents and deftly (my words) side-stepping a third (eighth) man before haring half the length of the pitch to score under the posts. A superb way to win this tight contest, as shortly afterwards the final whistle blew - Three tries to two for WFC and another win!!
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The final match was against Strathmore. Donnie cunningly neglected to point out to the WFC squad that they had already lost one match and therefore we could lose by a barrowload of tries and still win the tournament. As it turned out, there was no need to fall back on mere statistics as tries from James White(3), Corrie Dagger(2) Rob Tweedie and Neil Malloy led to our fourth victory of the day - and our third clean sheet in defence.
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This squad did the club proud. They were very worthy victors and displayed excellent commitment and professionalism throughout the afternoon, even dazzling the spectators with their inter-match warm-ups. Everyone "fronted up" and a good time was had by all. Occasions such as this always have their hot topics of conversation of the day, and yesterday was no exception. Just some that were noted (in no particular order and not exclusive) were:
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1. What word to have printed on the warmup T-shirts this season - "Caritas" is being hotly touted around by Smack. Several other were either unprintable or had the potential of becoming the first T-shirt libel case in the UK.
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2. The precise chronology of certain events that took place in Sweden the previous week (!!?).
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3. Who was going to be Moussa's campaign manager when he launches his attack on the post of Vice President.
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4. How does Brian King stay so young and fit?
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5. The detailed playlist order for the return journey in the party car.
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The day was rounded off nicely following the presentation of the trophy when President Brian Drinkwater won the main raffle prize of the afternoon! Well done to the intrepid Blairgowrie WFC squad:
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Craig Buchanan (Captain), Brian King, Rob Tweedie, Neil Tweedie, Jonny Pelter, Danny Moussa, Sam Paulo, James White, Nick Hart, Kenny Nicholson, Chris Masson, Neil Malloy, Eddie Crawford, Stuart Mack, Corrie Daggar
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Coach: Donnie Macfadyen
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Water boy, cloakroom attendant, Stewart Robertson
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Substitute, opposition spy and match reporter: Brian Drinkwater
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BD
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watsoniansrugby.com
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Published: 3/8/08
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