Right lads, gather round ye magnificent collection of bruised bahookies and broken dreams.
If ye can still bend yer knees after that scrap, pour yersel a pint and listen to Haggis McHaggis give ye the truth of the matter.

First Half
First half wisnae bad at all, truth be told.
They punched first like a bunch of angry farmers and we let them over the line, but the rugby gods took pity on us and the poor bugger missed the kick. Probably blinded by the sun or the sheer terror of our defensive line.

Then along came Elliot the Bard, gallopin through like some poetic Highland stallion, stickin down a braw wee try. And our Irish artillery officer Oisin slotted the kick like a man who’s kicked more balls than a Glasgow pub bouncer.
Our 9 and 10 were humming like a tractor engine on a cold morning. Lovely stuff. Ball movin. Shape decent. Brains functioning.
Only problem was the breakdown. We were a wee bit soft there. Forwards were eatin pressure like pensioners at a free buffet.
Still… old man Mikey and Grenville were charging about like two enraged oxen who’d been told the pub ran out of Guinness.
Mind you, the other lads had the weight advantage. Must’ve been 200 kilos each and at least one confirmed case of pre-diabetes in the front row.
Halftime came round.
Score was 7–5.
Or something like that. I may have had a concussion or three.

Second Half
Then came the second half.
And lads… we absolutely shat the bed.
Three quick strikes from them and suddenly we looked less like rugby players and more like lost tourists in Glasgow on a Friday night.
Still, credit where it’s due — we started firing back. A wee bit like some scrappy militia who remembered they actually had guns.
But the rugby gods were feeling cruel.
First we lose our Welsh marketing executive with a shattered finger. Heroic injury.
Meanwhile last week our Venezuelan comrade surrendered faster than Maduro. History will judge.
Then disaster.
Ben10 goes down.
The flock loses its shepherd. The orchestra loses its conductor. The pub loses its last sober man.
But fair play to Ben9, who grabbed the reins and tried to bring a bit of order back to the madness.
Renegades nicked two tries near the end, Oisin kept the scoreboard respectable with the boot, but those last nine minutes… aye… pure chaos.
And just like that.
Game over.

The Truth
But here’s the thing lads.
If — and it’s a big Scottish “if” — we had everyone healthy and available, we’d have a squad that could scare a few teams next season.
The bones are there.
The grit’s there.
And there’s enough stupidity in this group to fuel a small nation.
We just need to keep the heads up and keep showing up to training.
Because rugby, like whisky, only gets good when it’s been worked on for a while.

Haggis McHaggis