Renegades better than all The Rest

It was Renegades turn to take on ‘The Rest’ at Renegades founders’ day. All present were thankful that there is still no reason to rename the occasion along the lines of Gary Wilson Day or Des Nash Day.

The Rest turned out in force sensing an opportunity to inflict the first defeat of the season upon the Renegades.

Initially it looked like The Rest would be short of players so Benett offered his services to them – they decided they would rather play with 14 than have Benett in the team, so he slunk back to the Renegades where his disloyalty was grudgingly rewarded with a place on the bench.

In any case The Rest were soon up to 15 players plus a bench and the game was on.

Renegades started the stronger but allowed themselves to get distracted by the numerous off the ball incidents of The Rest.

Their off the ball antics arguably worked against them when towards the end of the first half PJ and Duncan (who still has aspirations to make it in the WWE, already dishing out 3 suplexes and 2 DDTs this season) delivered a trademark suplex to Caballo Loco – in the time it took for The Rest to score under the posts, Caballo Loco dished out some Chuck Norris justice he usually reserves for communists.

The end result was that The Rest’s try was disallowed and Caballo Loco saw yellow with Renegades going into half time 17-19 down.

In the second half the Renegades started to gain the ascendancy in the forwards. The Rest, always dangerous in a broken field, managed to score a long range try but the majority of the action was in and around their 22 with Dan Greenslade going over the white wash shortly after.

PK had another mixed day with the boot missing 2 conversions and scoring 2 conversions, but most importantly scoring two late penalties which were ultimately the difference between the teams as the Renegades won the match 30-26.

Renegades 2nd XV Report
As the dust settled on the first team game, the crowd’s gaze wandered to the horizon. Some speculated whether a rugby playing circus had come to town, some speculated whether the creatures stretching in the distance were the subjects of some sort of genetic experiment that had escaped a secret facility. But as the oddly shaped creatures waddled closer it became clear it was a rare sighting of the Renegades men’s second team...their leader not the mythical Salty but a hirsuite Welshman.

The team talk given by the aforementioned Middle-Earth dweller was a mixture of Churchill, Napoleon, Carwyn James, David Brent and stream of consciousness James-Joyce-esque ramblings. So the second team took the pitch with some clearly confused younger members including Tommy W who basically had no clue as to what had just happened.

However some confusion with the referee Niso Horney who appeard to struggle with the location of the the opposition. However the largely ex-Teachers congtingent was augmented by first team national team players and the game kicked off. Some early surging runs by Niall Bulger, and man-mountain Matt Kielo led to some early territory and with the backs marshalled well by Hendo Nagasaki and Philip Hall led to a penalty 10 metres out. Throwing back the years Henderson took a quick tap and scored a classic poachers try.

On resumption Jabba the Quigley in midfield was starting to break the gain line with ease and another try was scored by someone. At this stage Tom Kelly had gone off on disgust with himself at not being able to start a fight in the first 5 mins. Time catches up with us all Mr Kelly so don’t take it to heart.

The Renegades set-piece was solid and it was reassuring to see, the admittedly red-faced Dan Greenslade soaring like a salmon and winning our own ball tidily and disrupting the opposition. With a nod to Dan the skipper Mikey W decided on automotive themed line-out calls. Front ball was a make of car and back ball was a fruit...however at the first line-out the rotund celt called ‘NISSAN CHERRY’...(old joke for old boys…).

After the early lead fitness and a complete lack of condition started to tell. After the turn of half time there was tackle avoidance that Ellen Degeneres would have been proud of and two easy tries were let in and it looked like the second team were in danger of losing.

However the lads pulled themselves together inspired by some plucky tackling from the younger Fluffy Greenslade, and despite Mikey completely butchering a simple pass to Bernard we managed to fashion a score to round out the game as 19-17 victors.

Special thanks should be given to the opposition and particularly Keith Mahon who stepped into the front row at late notice. Also special thanks to Anthony ‘“Church” Cupidore who took it easy on Keith, thanks Church you are a true gent. Also special thanks for the first team national team boys who played two games, that was jolly decent of you gentlemen.

The following is a list of the heroes that day:-

1 Mike W (c)
2 Dan Greenslade
3 Tom Kelly
4 Keith Mahon
5 Niall Bolger
6 Matt Kielo
7 Hendo
8 Phil Hall
9 Scott Slater
10 Boycie
11 Willy Luu
12 John Quigley
13 Bernard
14 Paddy Furlong
15 Fluffy Greenslade
16 Tom W
17 PK

Also the above list are welcome at the second team dinner at Ruby Murry’s at 7.30pm on Friday March 23rd with the Guest Speaker our Club President Des Nash. Also of course our absent Captain Andrew Soltjynes is invited and can expressly invite first team or others to attend.

A good day was had by all and here is to next year!