Okahu Game 10 - Gingyu Force

Against a team we know to respect, this was a wierd game, though I can't point my fingers as to why exactly. Was it because as usual, their team takes ages to arrive and we scored against their girls? Or that the ref may have been slightly in our favour? As a team we've learnt to stop talking to refs, especially when they are white caucasian females who do not understand our gibberish accents. Anyway, we got what we needed, a 3-2 victory so like the poms say it - we'll take a victory in any form that it comes.

Unlike the WC runner-ups, we don't have a big mobile forward pack. We have a team of skinny running machines that drive the ball up like kamikaze pilots ready to hit the fray. Skinny men fall fast as Sean milked his penalty on a "shove" that they gave us :-) Its good, he's really learning how to dive now, even if its just play-acting. On defence we were particularly good too - their quickies were made to look slow and they only punched through twice (but managed to convert that to tries both times).

We opened with Dean (who else?) stepping his man on dummy after setting the deviation to give Jono a walk in. In the moment where he planted the try, he could finally proudly show his girlfriend his worth. Minutes later Chris (who else?) exposed their lack of cornering from dummy and swung one round to somebody to score. Nick (who else?) finished off some lovely field driving by running through defenders who confused themselves as to who would make the touch (short people are harder to touch as you have to bend you back to get to them).

Then their whole team showed up, and their defence at their line held so we were left famished but held them off to only two dummy-scoop tries.

Lesson to be learnt: Please white girls, it'll be for your own good. ...Jono verifies!

Okahu Comp - Bled Dogs

Players: Chris, Nick L, Stuart, Dean, Sean, Nick B and Jono

Playing with 7 players is becoming fairly common, so when only 7 ppl showed up for this game we weren't that worried about running one sub during the game.

The Bled dogs have improved since we last met them, with an array of big jump passes hitting their wings, one managing to score a try when our winger was caught out not marking the outside.

We came fought back though, with a huge effort on defence that the whole team was feeling pretty good about afterwards. Big saves, a pressuring line and high enthusiasm did the trick.

The only tries after were scored by us. Dean and Nick got one each, and Stuart got the last to seal the deal. The score being 3 - 1 in the end. A well deserved victory.

Highlights
- Chris got hit in the face/hat. Initially the ref gave the ball to them, but after complaining he didn't play at it, Chris got us the turnover.

- Huge Defence with only one try let in

Okahu Game 8- IDMM

Having lost last week due to no subs, we actually had 3 subs today to take out these guys like fire on shredded paper. The score was left unknown, but this game possibly had the most number of tries that we've ever scored. This does not mean that we don't think highly of the other team, although they weren't particularly great. The All Blacks apparently once said that to respect a team, you beat them by big scores.

Like a wild cat that lost its prey last week, we brooded on last week's draw and the associated its missed opportunities. And when Chris (in the form of his life) scored within the opening minute, there would be few today. We ditched freestyle patterns and pounced up the field with simple 3-ups that ripped through some pretty good yardage.

At the end of it all, the ref ran off with the score. Then we all went home and ate.

On a different note, we'll be playing in a small competition on Waitangi day. A member of one of the other teams was heard to be saying that we are a bunch of newbs and we'd get wasted any other day by them. Maybe this is just my ego talking (no wait, our egos talk on the field), but we're going to target this guy's team and rewrite his memory. It'll be a total recall.

Tamaki touch - the Nailed

First game back at Tamaki on a nice Friday afternoon.

Players: Chris, Nick, Dean, Jimmy, Sean, Stuart and Joe (7 players)

The team kept up the fast pace that we showed the day before, even though we only had one sub. The opposition weren't as experienced as previous teams that we have played, but it was a good game to start the second half of the season.

a few bumbled opportunities which Ops calls the 'last pass syndrome' should have us working hard to secure what should be guaranteed tries.


Winners by 8 to 5 in the end

Okahu Game 7 - Scubablue Mao Mao

For the first game back after the break, half our team was left behind in our Asian motherlands, so we played this out with no subs whilst this other team had five subs but we came away with a draw in a game that was really ours to win. In many sporting draws, it salvages a bit of pride for both teams. For them, they were 3-0 down and we slowly got tired and they caught up using their sub boxes to even the score by the end of the game. For us it was a slog-fest, playing in hot conditions with no subs right after our holidays.

The nature of this game was bullshit really. I know I whinge about the ref alot, but these fellas got away with all the disciplinary stuff - she warned them countless times about shoving in the rucks, clearing the rucks, but we rarely scored a penalty from all that. They got touched as dummy half a few times too and got away with those. And at every turnover they threw the ball away, and played the game with a barrage of swear words. Its tempting to quote a cricket captain in saying that "only one team was playing in the spirit of the game". In truth, we got away with our bits too, Kerhan returned to his angle-plant-sideways clown acts...

Dean opened our account with two of the type of tries he always gets: flat-footed ball turned to solo effort from brilliant footwork. Later, to show that we could work as a team, Nick, Chris and Sean teamed up to let Sean waltz in for a try. A few tries went begging, but we lacked both skill and energy to finish them off.
Our defence then went placid... allowing them in for tries which weren't flukey, but should have been prevented.

Lesson to be learnt: Stay tough for the entire game.