With the league finally starting two weeks ago after the longest preseason on record, everyone was glad that there would be no games on the following weekend – player burnout is a very real and present danger these days.

The break had provided much needed respite from their 1 game this season, but the Renegades were eager to get back to playing rugby, with Mariners providing the opposition this weekend.

There would be an extra edge to this game with Renegades legend Mikey Williams coming out of retirement to play for the Mariners. The welsh chubster set about the mind games early in the week, culminating in Mikey trying to organise the biggest 5:01 on record, even offering to buy his trademark steak and snails for all.

Williams had the measure of his former team-mates, with the likes of Osama bin Verling, Sam the Prod and El Caballo Loco in their ranks this was a very tempting offer. Luckily captain Petting-Zoo was there to remind the lads that there was plenty of time to have a drink after the game.

The Mariners, missing several players, were made whole by Teacher and Renegade players. The Renegades didn’t let pity get in the way, scoring 4 tries in the first half and going in to half time with a score line of 26-0.

The young Renegades contributed well. Cedric Diggory, who hadn’t been seen since the Magical Mystery Tour, bagged a brace. He had apparently been away waving his wand at Hermione for a month which seems to have worked wonders for the wizard winger.

Tony Man Bun scored 2 tries too. There were concerns that when he shaved off his man bun he would lose his powers, but Tony is no Sampson. The Miniature Man from Madeira has grown in confidence such that he appears to be 4’11’’, a full foot taller than his actual height of 3’11’’.

It wasn’t all good for Man Bun – he had clearly been taking lineout lessons from McChin (father and lineout thrower of the year) as he twice managed to lob his own man and land the ball into Mariners prop and Renegades coach Barry’s younger, better looking brother Dustbin Archiball’s hands.

Healy almost scored a fantastic individual try before he tripped over an old discarded sofa in the middle of the pitch. Before he could complain that you wouldn’t get this sort of fly tipping at the National Stadium, he realised that it was none other than retired Renegade Phil ‘The Cup’ Hall also representing Mariners and sneakily disguising himself as a 59 year old discarded leather sofa. Phil ‘The Cup’ set about his return to rugby with all the customary enthusiasm and grace for which he has become renowned.

Des ‘the bionic ham’ Nash ran half the length of the pitch for a try. Howler, Heany and Garside all scored from close range.

PK - the Renegades best kicker - had a mixed day with the boot kicking over 5 out of 7 conversions. Although this doesn’t quite do PK justice - for most of the conversion attempts, the subs couldn’t be bothered to bring PK a kicking tee, forcing him to kick straight off the ground. It’s almost like someone is annoyed that PK is now renegades best kicker and that he seems to be basking in his reputation as probably not being quite as shit as everyone thinks he is.

The final conversion was attempted (and missed) by Jonny bin Laden, with the Front Street Terrorist not certain whether the posts were swaying like drain pipes taped to a football goal in high wind, or if it was just a side-effect of his 4th party bus in 2 days.

But it was retired Renegade Williams who had the last say in the day for the Mariners. The Mariners had some good pressure in the Renegades 22. Dustbin Archiballs took a quick tap penalty and offloaded to Williams on the 5 meter line. Williams will claims that he got into the heads of his former teammates, or perhaps he was just lucky that Jahan accidently smashed his own teammate before hitting Williams, but the net result was that Jahan had blood pouring from his eye, Ben Wontshaw was ko’d on the ground and Mikey crashed over the try line like a tubby Womble with diabetes.

The final score was 50-7 with the Mariners making the conversion.