Our first international tour and with the aim of completing a six nations itinerary, South Wales came up first – mainly because they have some Holiday Inns in handy places.

The trip down was a good’un. Head Coach, Minis Chairman and Top Tourer Chris Thomas introduced us all to the upcoming shenanigans and without further ado, that guy from the west got the Welsh Leek hat to wear. Then the gold-cape-chain Chav gear and the Dude gear were distributed for feral misdemeanours. Nice to see a return of the size 22 trainers. Butch got a nice frock to wear for accepting a marriage proposal from a female on 29th February. Shame.

One stop at the services where some beer was sold to a funeral party and first aid administered to a woman who had slipped on some decking. Despite that, Ian the Coach got us to Newport at 9pm without a fuss. The hotel was right by the Celtic Manor and was the usual good value, good standard facility from Holiday Inn.

First Game Day

A match against Llandaff or as Chris said variously – landruf, lantaf, lanfaf, lansomething etc..

Llandaff is one of the oldest clubs in Wales and you could feel the rugby blood in the air as we got off the bus and made our way to the first team pitch. A super location with the cathedral as a back drop allowing joint team photos to be taken before the game.

It is always tricky to judge standards of teams when arranging tours. For a home perspective, Llandaff ended up somewhere between Macc and Stockport – in other words very good. The deciding factor was they had a couple of very quick and big athletes out on the wings and their other backs did a very good job of sending the ball out to the flanks. Their forwards just edged the pack play with better control and speed at the breakdowns. Marple fought well and bounced back from 2 tries down to score a phased move to the right of the posts with Lawro touching down and Bryn converting. After that, Llandaff ran in several and it wasn’t looking too pretty. To their credit, Marple lads dug deep, slowed the game and closed down their backs very well particularly in the final third of the match.

Wonderful hosting followed at the welcoming clubhouse including a nice spread of grub, raffles, presentations and a sing song led by Alex W on the Joanna. A mystical gypsy woman also wanted us to weigh her baby to win a prize..Cheers Llandaff.

From the clubhouse we walked into Cardiff City centre – about a mile or so away through sports fields, Sofia Gardens cricket ground and the castle grounds. We then went on the Millenium Stadium tour after a very pleasant walk along the Taff river and back up Westgate Street. The tour was a bit of an unknown beast – hey – it’s an empty stadium. It proved however to be very interesting and has whetted the appetite to return for a full international.

Back to base then at the hotel with dinner followed by the tour court. Ian the Coach was the judge dishing out sentences for season-wide crimes against rugby and acceptable human behaviour. A photo slide show followed condemning Mark to accusations of stalking for the year. The lads (in 4 different groups) then had to perform a Haka which they had been practising in the hotel rooms and corridors. The Hakas were, with one possible exception, truly awful and would not have put the fear of god into a one week old puppy.

Second Game Day

The Sunday game was against Pill Harriers in the centre of Newport close to the very wonderful transporter bridge. (Closed due to breeziness).

Despite the wet and blowy conditions, both teams put on a super display of rugby. Lesser mortals would have stayed under the duvet.

Marple opened the scoring when George was unleashed upon the hosts. Passed the ball in his own half, and with shouts of “runnnn”,  Big G set off and danced his way through the lot of ‘em. Touch down under the posts. No cons due to slight westerly.

Pill fought back and scored a couple through good play in the forwards. Marple however continued to scrap; some particularly good runs from Matt Hopkins and Jamie. Eventually, Matty S straightened the angle and burst the line, offloaded to Big Ben who put Fraser in from 10 yards out. Nice try. 10-10.

By this stage, the slight westerly had begun to feel like DefCon 1. The ref and coaches agreed to end the game ahead of time much to everyone’s dismay!

Great fun after. We learnt that Nev is useless with his balls (ping pong), Karen likes a sing song (practice on the late night Marple train?) and next year we need to go and buy drinks outside of the hotel.

Pill were fantastic hosts, as were Llandaff. Good friends were made and both clubs are a credit to South Wales and rugby.

So to the trip home. Suitably loose, the song book was out and one and all had a lovely sing-song up the motorways.

Huge thanks to Chris T for all his hard work in organising the tour. Thanks also to Ian, Martin and Chris S for their coaching. And of course,  a big thanks to Ian the Coach and Bullocks who transported us safely.

Was it the spare room Nev?

Presidents warm-up game this Saturday and Presentations on Sunday afternoon.

Tidy.

An impressive performance over both days by the squad, the lads are working hard and the results are testiment to that, two good victories against decent opposition.
our 1st defeat on the tour came in todays lads boat race. We had again received fantastic hospitality from Eddie at DK, thanks for a great day.
We stayed and enjoyed our presentations, congratulations to Danny Matley our player of the Tour and to the Worst parent ( The Hughes Award ), suprise, suprise this year won by Carol Hughes !
A few drinks before heading off to Marple and the final court ( everyone owes me money )arriving at The navigation for food and refreshments ( cheers Danny ), before setting off home.
Thanks to all who came and made the tour what is was, thanks to Bromsgrove ( Miranda ) and Dudley Kingswinford ( Eddie ), Holiday Inn, Mayne coaches & Gloucester Rugby Club. Also A&E at Redditch for looking after Conor. All the lads,
Tom H, Cameron, Jacob, Joel, Jamie, Jordan, Rob S, Alistair, Tom W, Adam, Zak, Rob F, Eddie, Haydn, Jake, Richard ,Joe , Nick ,Sam, Danny, Conor. Jack, James Y. who all played and behaved superbly.
Sorry to the pubs of bromsgrove that had to endure some of our parents, we know who you are !

See you in October.

Saturday morning and spotting the latecomers stagger in to breakfast, we set off for a short journey to play Bromsgrove. Very fortunately the weather was fine and we started against a strong Bromsgrove team, a game eventually won by our forwards who dominated the scrum and lineout, tries from Jamie, Joe and Conor, with two conversions from Nick gave us a H/t lead of 19 – 10. The second half started with changes to allow all the touring party game time and our pressure told as tries from Conor,Sam & Alistair, one con from Nick, we pulled away to win 36 – 10. The only downside was an injury to Conor , who went to hospital and eventually joined up with us in Gloucester with nothing broken. Great day at Bromsgrove, fantastic hosts who really looked after us, lovely club.
A large crowd watched the game before Bromsgroves final home game of the season and both teams played out an entertaining game.
Squad,
Tom H, Cameron, Jacob, Zak, Adam, Eddie, Joel, Jamie, Rob F, Rob S, Jordan, Tom W, Alistair, Jake,Richard, Joe, Nick, Danny, Sam, Haydn, Jack, James Y, Conor .
Tries, Conor 2, Sam , Joe, Alistair, Jamie.
Cons Nick 3

Onto Gloucester to watch Sale take on Gloucester, in a grudge match which to the delight of all from Marple, Sale won. Great ground and a good laugh with their fans. The lads made plenty of noise and outsang the locals around us. Back to the hotel for dinner and an early night ( for some of us ).

Well played Anselmians , worthy winners.
Marple lessons need to be learnt and quickly before our season ends up flat.

Squad,
James Y, Danny, Conor, Sam, Jack, Nick, Richard, Alistair, Rob S, Jordan, Jamie, Joel, Jacob, Cameron, Tom H, Tom W, Rob F, Eddie, Haydn, Zak.
Scorers,
Tries , Sam , Tom H.
Cons Nick.

Our second fixture saw us take on a massively improved Aldwinians, a different pack , with a few changes in the backs and almost immediately we were under pressure at the scrum, but good tackling enable Marple to steady themselves before a drive upfield was stopped short before a pick and go resulted in Nathan driving over, con by Nick 7 -0. Near half time a punt up field was allowed to bounce and it fell kindly for Aldwinians to score under the posts , con scored 7 – 7 at half time.
The second half started brightly for Marple and the game was taken to our visitors , a try in the corner from Danny with a mazey run, lovely conversion by Nick 14 – 7. Again more pressure resulted in a turn over and Danny was away again under the posts , con by Nick for a f/T score of 21 – 7. Make no mistake Aldwinians are improving and contributed in both their games for long periods.
Tries, Danny 2, Nathan.
Cons Nick 3.
Squad.
James Y, Danny, Conor, Sam, Jack, Nick, Richard, Alistair, Rob S, Jordan, Jamie, Joel, Jacob MW, Cameron, Tom H, Haydn, Jacob H, James G, Rob F, Zak, Tom W, Adam, Eddie, Nathan, Joe.
The final game between Sheffield Tigers and Aldwinians ended 35 – 5 for the tigers against a tiring Aldwinians team. Thanks to both Nathan and Zak for helping out proping for Sheffield. a great mornings rugby , played in a good spirit, between three committed teams.
Special mention to Eddie Males who took a boot to the head and went to hospital, Eddie is fine now and looking forward to his easter eggs.

To start with the games were a bit slow and the ‘traitor Knutsford’ boys battled to get the hang of tagging and playing against their own team!  Not long before they got into the swing of things though and it proved to be quite a close match between the two teams.  Daniel was on fire scoring try after try, it seemed every time he got hold of the ball, a try was scored – well done!  At the same time Harvey W was on fire with his tagging!  Josh managed some great tagging too (against Marple!) yet still got his fair few tries in.  Again many more tries scored by McKenzie, Archie, Harvey M, Joseph, Harvey W and Morgan.  A really great effort played by McKenzie who managed 5 great tries and Niall who was on ‘tagging’ form.  More fantastic team work came from Harvey W, Archie, Elliot, Chris, Niall, Joseph, Sam A, Saxon & Ned who managed to hinder Knutsford’s progress by taking lots of tags (except of course for Sam A again who was aiding Knutsfords progress!)

Some really impressive progress made by the Marple team as a whole, the boys should be very proud of themselves, well done!

Many great shots as always courtesy of Alban:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=01e112e8b352e53d&resid=1E112E8B352E53D!1488&parid=1E112E8B352E53D!212&authkey=!AKKa9WM4mMl_-1w

Tries: Daniel (9), Josh (9), Archie (5), McKenzie (5), Harvey M (4), Joseph (3), Harvey W (3), Morgan (2), Elliot (1), Charlie (1), Markus (1), Isaac (1), Ned (1).

Tags: Josh (18), Harvey W (10), Archie (8), Elliot (7), Harvey M (6), Chris (5), Niall (5), Joseph (4), Daniel (4), Saxon (3), Sam A (2), Markus (2), Morgan (2), Charlie (1), Isaac (1), McKenzie (1), Ned (1).

The second half started brightly by Marple but silly mistakes were costing possession and Sandbach were able to work there way back into the game. Stout defending from Marple kept Sandbach to pick and goes and any ball moved wide was well dealt with, but with Sandbach having to chase the game eventually their pressure told and with 10 minutes to go they got a converted try to make the score 19 – 12. Marple played the last 10 minutes really well keeping Sandbach out of range and closed the game down to win 19 – 12.

By far the best effort of the season today, it came down to wanting it more. After the enforced mid-winter break, the performances have been building up to this, massive thanks to Sedgley Park after that game, we knew we could take on anything .

Congratulation to the lads all 23 there today, at the end of the day, the 22 in the squad won the game but all 27 players have contributed to today win.

Squad,
James Y, Danny, Conor, Sam, Jack, Nick,Richard, Alistair, Rob S, jordan, Jamie, Joel, Jacob MW, Cameron, Tom H, TomW, Haydn, Rob F, James G, Adam, Eddie, Jake.

scores,
Tries, Conor ( 2 ), Danny.
cons, Nick ( 2 )

Ashley Sunderland of Marple RUFC

Ashley Sunderland, captain of Marple U17 Junior Colts, has been selected to play for the Irish Exiles U17s against Cheshire U17s. The fixture was at Macclesfield RUFC on 12th March.

Getting up every Sunday morning for the past 10 years to train and play with his team has eventually paid off with some recognition and the club is very proud of him especially ‘Granny Sunderland’.

Over the years Ashley has rarely missed a game, he has worked hard on his rugby skills and always made training sessions (even when he has been injured he has been there to support the team).

Some may say his father and coach, John, has been the driving force behind him being ever present and sometimes it may have been a struggle to get Ashley out of bed on cold, wet Sunday mornings to travel to the likes of Buxton, Caldy and Kendal. However, like the other players that make the effort, they always enjoy themselves when they get on the pitch and as many older players and coaches know, the experiences and memories will be invaluable when they look back.

A big thanks to Marple RUFC for supplying a facility, that gives youngster this type of opportunities.

Squad, James Y, Jack, Danny, Rob S, Haydn, Nick, Richard, Jamie,Tom W, Jordan, James G, Joel, Eddie, Cameron,Tom H , Sam, Conor, Adam, Jacob H.

Tries, Danny 2, Sam 2, Rob S, Conor, Richard.
Cons, Nick 7.
MOM Richard.
Tackle of the Week, richard.
Moment of the Week, Danny’s 1 st try.

Four tries apiece, another super contest between these two teams came down to one missed (touchline) conversion. Marple clung on to the victory despite a very strong Leek come-back in the final third of the match.

Marple lads didn’t exactly duck the tackles, but when the big Leek no. 8 charged, there was a lot of hanging on to all areas of his body except the legs. The flankers and pack generally could do worse than study 2012 Welsh Grand Slam winners, messrs Lydiate and Warburton – the low chop tackle at its best.

Leek’s no. 8 grabbed all of their tries but he was ably supported by his team mates. Bad luck on the day, but well played over the double header.

Tries for Marple included a pair for Ben at centre. His first score came from a lovely reverse angle run taking a short-pass ball from Bryn at 10. Ben’s second was from another good backs move worked from the half way line.

Matty grabbed the third try following a nice pick-up from Jamie at 8 then offloaded to 9,10, 12 and onto Matty to touch down.

Fraser scored the fourth Marple try with an excellent line burst from full back.

As with the away fixture, Leek showed better fitness than Marple and scored three of their four tries in the last third of the game – 100% cons for Marple just ensured the victory.

MOTM to Matty for work in the tackle zone in particular

Effort to Dan at 9 for lion hearted combat

Parents award to Fraser – because Deena said so.

Tries: Ben Ma 2, Matty, Fraser. Cons: Bryn 4