Men and Women unbeaten at Mad Hatters

The new season kicked off with a bang for the Renegades. It was hot day up at National Stadium and the paler skinned players were suffering in the sun, but both teams showed that they are going to be tough to beat this year.

With a few new additions to the men's team, there was a bit a reshuffle of the back line. After training hard for the last 5 years, JQ fulfilled his life long ambition and finally made the transition to the second row. His former position of fat centre was ably filled by Barry Archiballs, with Champagne Charlie stepping in at fly-half. There were rumours that Mikey was going to come out of retirement for the 6th year in a row, but he dropped out last minute when he found that the 12 year old Mariners winger was going to be playing.

Renegades started strongly in their first game against Teachers. There were some strong debut performances from rookies Alex and Robbie, but Jonny Vagina was a massive disappointment, butchering several opportunities on the wing. The Renegades made the dominance count with Healy and Simon Petting-Zoo both sneaking over from close range to make it 10-0. Unfortunately, Renegades were missing experienced kicker PK Skips, because his other half wouldn't let him out. Second choice kickers Champagne Charlie and Buckfast Barry were not up to task and both conversions were missed.

Renegades continued where they left off in the second game against Police. There were some good breaks from Healy and Caballo Loco and the Blair Witch Project horrified the Police defence with a rampaging run. The Original Top Try Scorer laid down his marker for the season with a destructive run down the wing to get the first try and Bennett sealed the deal with another try to make it 10-0.

The final match was a winner takes all match against the Mariners, with both teams unbeaten so far. After 2 hard fought wins, the Mariners were looking tired and the Renegades took full advantage running in some fantastic team tries. Several, absolutely spiffingly good breaks from Champagne Charlie and Jonny Vagina were finished off with some great support play. Young winger Cedric had a strong performance and went over in the corner after receiving a netball bounce pass from Jimmy Bum. Renegades ran in 7 tries and finally managed to knock over a few conversions too.

Having only scored one try all day, Jimmy Bum subbed himself off early in order to concentrate on his refereeing career. In the final game of the day between Police and Teachers, he immediately put himself in the centre of attention by pulling out his well used red card, in scenes reminiscent of his international refereeing debut in Cayman where he sent off 5 players.

Interviewed after the game, new captain Simon Petting-Zoo said, "Well, you know, we scored a few tries and we didn't concede any, so we won the tournament. Beach?"

The ladies team also started in style, running in 10 tries in their 3 games and only conceding 1. There were strong performances all round with Melissa F showing she's still got her pace and rookie Jackie-O scoring a long range try on her debut. The girls adapted well to the new rules with Princess Leah scoring the first ever conversion in Bermuda Women's Touch rugby. She will be helping out Barry and Charlie with some coaching tips over the next few weeks until PK Skips is allowed out again.

Due to the change in the season structure this year, next week sees the opportunity for Renegades to play against each other in a mildly racist round robin tournament. Then over the next few weeks there will be a 10-a-side tournament, a 7s tournament, a 9-a-side tournament and 4-a-side tournament. Then it's Rugby Classic and then I think they are going to try to fit some league games in before the end of the season.

Islandstats write up is here...
http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=6&photoeventid=0&assoc=1&newsid=41445