My Boy In England- Observations

Nice report KDM. Who is he playing for?

I love watching a couple of lower league games live each season. Much more interesting (usually) than the high level pro stuff.

and isn't it refreshing how little trouble they seem to have at scrum time compared to the pro game.

Agree Northan. The scrum is the worst thing in pro rugby. On TV I can fast forward it but live it's a nightmare.


The Vis he is in one of the teams in the top 4 of this table!

http://www.englandrugby.com/fixtures-and-results/competitions/london-se-division/

Going to watch my boy play club rugby is the highlight of the week. The wife loves it,the dog absolutely loves it. Watch about 3 grades because we know boys we've been watching since they were U8s. Have something to eat and drink,maybe a beer or two after the game. The scrums take 30 seconds instead of seven minutes. A try is awarded or disallowed in an instant instead of ten minutes with a TMO. Both styles have about an equal rate of accuracy. It's a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Sydney. Remember a winter's day here is often sunny and 20c.

I dread the day he gives it up. I'll still go but it won't be the same.

I live a mile away from Westcombe Park's ground ..... if that's his team I'll go and watch :)

I played against Guernsey over there ...... it was very much a boys on tour match

Good to hear it's going well Kam - and your boy aint homeless!

oh and my observations of watching this sort of level for a few years is that good points kickers that a capable players are like 1404.49 carat sapphires - good ball players yes, decent points kickers yes, but decent points kickers that can play ball as well - not often!

Cheers spyker. My lad's the same. Some stuff he does is top class. Other stuff is...not so much!


CC if you lope over that mile tomorrow and catch East Grimstead play Westcombe Park you'll see an extremely large second rower with a hipster beard and chicken legs. That's not him. My boy will the redheaded 9. Don't stick around too long or you might have to singalong to Neil Diamond's greatest hits!!

He lives in Fulham. Just like Terry McCann. Or Hammersmith. Something like that.

Cheers !

I'll try and make it ..... prob a bit late for the match as it must be HT now.

If the players are still there I'll go up to him and say 'Is your dad Mr Machine ... I'm Mr Cat '

which may confuse the hell out of him.

I think watching the England rugby team has given me a very warped idea of how English people play rugby. England has shown some expansive rugby in recent years like the other UK nations but when it came to the crunch in the RWC they reverted to type and got blown off the park.

Watching the boy's games on video I expected the same. I couldn't be more wrong. The work of the forwards is excellent and far superior to similar grade forwards in oz. What's surprised me is the willingness to chuck the ball out to the backs. The 10s rarely kick. There's not many islanders there which is good. They're either making breaks or attempting catastrophic chip kicks 15m from their own tryline or wiping people out with shoulder charges but more often just missing tackles. Fiji and Samoa 7s sides give the impression of great hands but in club rugby they drop the ball with monotonous regularity. The boy tells me they make a big thing of it if the opposition has an Islander centre. He couldn't care less. As a skinny pre pubescent redhead he had to tackle those Man-Childs every Saturday and Sunday!!

For me the most noticeable diiference is at scrum time. All 8 forwards from both teams plus the 9s and probably all the backs lift up their feet and dig mud out of their boots. Obviously the grounds are soft and muddy. I've never ever seen that before.

That's not mud - most playing fields over here it will be broken glass, hypodermics etc........

LOL!!

20 odd years ago I went to watch my club side play with some mates. We got there for 4th grade and were on the cans straight away. At that time 1st Grade needed to win to get into the semis. Anyway we're about 8 points down with ten to go and I was getting very worried. If we didn't win this match we were out of the comp. We had to do something and in a hurry! All this was expressed to my mates with heartfelt anguish. They looked at me in disbelief. "It's coming up for half time in 2nd Grade you drunken imbecile!" !!!

Am I the only one who cannot make head nor tail of that last post?

probably just you.
it's fairly clear imo. he went to the rugby with his pals when the 4th team were playing, presumably the 3rds then the 2nds also play before the 1st XV. they drank a sh1t load of beer and when the 2nd's game was on he was so wasted he thought he was watching the 1st XV who had a crucial match that day.
it appears his mates knew what game it was so we can only surmise he is a bit of a lightweight
vous avez évidemment ne parlez pas australian

Ok, got it thanks.

Lets hope the son has more capacity or he will never make it in the NH.

Very accurate summation northanlite albeit with some superfluous commentary thrown in.

The lad is coming home on Wednesday. Can't wait! Three more sleeps!

That's Tommy at the Rugby. He LOVES it.

He's fine thanks for asking. He went with his girlfriend and came home solo. I think that's a result. She didn't like Rugby. What kind of woman doesn't like Rugby? My wife and his Mum,that's the same person coincidentally,absolutely loves Rugby. I reckon if they had women's Rugby back in her day she'd have been pretty good at it too. Not so much the skills side more an Enforcer role. She'd have no remorse about a stray elbow coming into contact with those two air holes on the front of your face. But she cooks with Love. Anyway the boy is home he didn't get beheaded in Europe and he got rid of a dud girlfriend and now he's using my car 24/7 and not putting petrol in it so it's all back to normal.

its amazing how much you miss them    until they have been home a week !!!

OK so I've been fully appraised of the London Rugby Experience and it's 100% POSITIVE.

Training turned out to be a 40 min train ride instead of the 20 minute promised. Apart from that the boy LOVED IT. What he loved most was the incredible Club spirit. After every match there was speeches and MASSIVE PISS UPS. Rugby used to be like this in Sydney back in my day. Then players/people started to get in their car and go home at full time. Not at his club. Massive Benders invariably singing SWEET CAROLINE is just the normal precursor to a Saturday Night in Kent!!

good to hear ........ did his ex take part in the piss-ups ?

presumably she wasn't called Caroline :)

No. Thankfully the handbrake only went once.

He said the public transport there was amazing. Never waited more than 3 minutes for a bus or train. Suburban Sydney you need to add a zero on that number. I don't care. I gave up skateboards and trains the minute I got my licence.

public transport has to be good in London area cos you can't drive anywhere.
good to hear the auld rugby spirit is alive and well tho.
My nephew has just broken into the 1st XV at the my club and they have dangerous nights out and not much has changed.
The big difference is nobody has a pint until a least 2 hours after the game and they have been "hydrated."
So they all come in and have some food with various types of juice which freaks me and the other auld fells out big time.
It kinda makes sense as the body is dehydrated and draws liquid in extra quick but we used to have tins of beer and bottles of whisky in the changing room.
no wonder our livers are all f***ed.
Mind you when the booze curfew is lifted by the coach they go full on radio rental. This may go some way to explaining why they are 2 & 6 so far this season (won first two lost all 6 since )

The_KAMIKAZEE ...

where your son was playing it's 20 miles from the centre of London .. my street adjoins Worlds End Lane so called as it's next to countryside ..... Londoners think that's another world

the population of London is almost half that of Australia ....... that's a lot of people to squeeze into a small area and it's why there are congestion charges in central London for motorists.

Well he painted a rosy picture of his time there and I've always been a massive Anglophile growing up on Dad's Army and Minder and Rumpole and Lovejoy and Property Ladder I hope to get over there soon watch a couple of Wallaby matches and check out a canal and Cheltenham races and GORGE on Classic Cars  and the list is endless.

The Church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6jhpaX7fNQ

Dad's Army and Minder and Rumpole and Lovejoy and Property Ladder

holy sh1t you will be in for a major disappointment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBasdIOVY7c

There is no England now - The Kinks