3rd Team came off 2nd Best

On a very wet day Tring 3rd team traveled to Old Albanians ground near St Albans. With no other teams at home we had the opportunity to play on the main pitch, which is always welcomed. The warm up was unusually quite, maybe the rain was keeping the players in the heated changing room! However when we got onto the training pitch, and this has been the great theme with this team so far this season, all 16 players upped the anti and started to focus on the job in hand. OA's started well and right from the off were an extremely well drilled side playing with hard runners and good patterns of play, unfortunately for them some good line speed from Tring, some wet conditions and good tackling forced a few handling errors. Tring held out for a while and started to put together some attacking play of their own. After an attacking lineout (or scrum) I can't remember which, the ball was secured by some solid forward play and then fed out through the backs with some fantastic hands in conditions not suited to running rugby. Duncan Madinson swapped with Nick Game for the move and stood at 10, a miss pass found Nick who rounded a couple of players on the left touchline, and with the crowd of defenders coming across he put a cross field kick back into play for Duncan to pick up and score under the posts. Nick converted.

A few minutes later OA's scored a well worked try under the posts. This is where the game started to turn (for me) and the report will soon end! Mat Boswell was swung around after neatly picking the ball up at the back after a tricky kick through and duly hit his head on the floor, causing concussion! I will meet Mat later! A few minutes after this some rather large player dived on my knee, which was the end of the game for me and hence the match report! Whilst laying on the physio bed gazing at the attractive physio I was informed that Nick had converted a penalty. His 2nd I believe. From what i understand Tring battled hard again and were ultimately undone by a strong OA's team featuring a sponsored first team player at 12! Another good effort from the team. They are always willing to fight for the Black and Gold, good work all 16 of you.

Oh, and that brings me to Saturday night, where we tried to beat the record for the amount of Tring players in Stoke Mandeville A&E, Mat Boswell, Rory Sore and myself, it helped pass the time, but failed to beat the record set by Danny Max and his friends a few years back.