Lads,
Sorry for the much overdue Shuto Tens Report. Here goes:
It was a sunny Sunday, on the 31st of June in Urayasu. Match day was coming up and with only a handful of players confirmed, there was some last minute word that we would be in the same, rather embarrassing position as Zenkai Beers of not even being able to scrape up 10 players to make a team for the competition. So, we got together and basically decided to make a joint team to play all of their games, and all of AFRC’s games together. As we had about six guys, and Zenkai had seven or eight, we were about the right number combined.
However, we had some extra drama with myself coming down with a rather nasty stomach illness the night before, so I had to sit out leading a much depleted lineup of Jeremy, Thomas, Nike and Guy to join with the Zenkai players to play double the games of everyone else.
The first few matches were fairly predictable, as we were still figuring out combinations with the Zenkai players, and soon the team got tired on top of that, and match by match, we dropped the Zenkai and the AFRC games. However, in spite of the tiredness, as the day went on, AFRC and Zenkai started to play well together and figure things out. Also, I tried running a match as referee and got through it okay, so put my hand up to join in for the second half of the afternoon, along with Benoit who raced back from the airport, and it was in our last match of the day against Moccos that we turned things around and came away with a solid win, preceded by a pretty solid match against the Gaijin who only got away one try to nil.
Nike ensured that we had a dominant scrum, Guy had an excellent day playing halfback for both teams, and a useful day kicking with the boot, Jeremy and Thomas ran and tackled like maniacs, and Benoit not only had a huge day running everywhere, but also took over the administrative duties as record keeper in the management tent.
Everyone joined in the gaijins vs nihonjins game, where the outnumbered and exhausted gaijins put up what fight they could against legions of well rested japanese and a crooked referee. It was fun to play with the other gaijins though, and a good day’s rugby all-round. Those guys that showed up did the club proud, and let’s hope that next year we can play with 10 players.
Cheers
Simon
All France Rugby Club 