Colts Round 4 2022

Up until now we’ve been able to scramble numbers or come up against an opposition that was willing to match us in numbers or share some players. This week we lost out on both counts. We ran on with 12 players thanks to Alistair Ho who debuted with his classmates and Samir who somebody brought along and then had to play for the seniors after he played for us. Mosman had the full complement of 23 and their manager declined to drop numbers as he ‘wanted to give all his players a go’. 

As you would imagine 23 against 12 was never going to be an even match and so it proved, Brothers going down 74-0. There’s not much you can say about the game. Everyone tried manfully but playing against a team nearly double the size of ours and with the man with the whistle refereeing only his fifth game ever, it was a trying day for the team. At halftime, we set an aim of crossing their line and were so close in achieving our goal, but when you are outnumbered to that extent it becomes hard to break the defensive line no matter how hard everyone tried.

On the day nobody epitomised the team’s never-say-die attitude better than Chris Salem who was everywhere and made some bullocking runs much to the appreciation of the crowd and his team mates. Liam Andrews picked up two points for his runs, tackles and tolerance, while Nathan Le and Maks Klimsak also never stopped and picked up a point each.

Nobody dropped their heads and everyone played to the end and, thanks to actually playing a home game at home, everyone got something to eat and drink after the game. Time to brush ourselves off and get ready for next week against Wakehurst at Wakehurst. We have lots of players available this week who were away last week so at least there shouldn’t be a repeat of the 12-man team from last weekend.

If it’s any consolation the Canberra Easts 2nd grade team I played for made the back page of the Canberra Times in the late 1990s when we got beaten 125-3. Most of us had already played for thirds and fatigue set in pretty quickly. We would have been well pleased with 74-0.    

This game against Wakehurst is the last of the scheduled games. Not sure what happens next however the club has sent a proposal to NSW Suburban Rugby suggesting that we have another full round, starting on 18 June then breaking for a month (so people can travel) and re-starting 23 July to play the last four games. Then a quick finals format. I will keep you updated as to what NSW rugby says.