Okahu Game 5 - The Rams

We played a team called Russel MCV - Rams, and boy did they ram everything they had into our defensive six on the field. The opened by gassing D.Lau on the outside, which not just scored their try, but stretched David's hamstrings too far, too hard, and too fast so he pulled out for the game and sulked over his embarrassment for sleeping on his wing.

The ref was mostly fair, except for his leniency on their basketball dumps (think of a bounce pass, but between your legs), which gave them quick play of the ball.
It also took him a little while before he started penalizing them for running through our rucks after making the touches - this cardinal sin slows down our play of the ball, the equivalent of a rugby union player flopping all over the ruck.

Both teams took turn sharing the lead, but when we were leading 4-3, the game went our way when the ref finally penalised them for dancing over our rucks and Kerhan and Chris set Stuart up for a 56 cut, where he slimmed his way through the diving defenders for the try that sealed the game for us, and from there we got another to win 6-3.

Okahu Game 4 - let's play ball

We played some megahuge polynesians today. This is a game that could have blown out in our favour, but for us falling asleep during the middle period of the game, and that only one team was playing positive rugby to win 5-2.

Us.

These lazy arses walked over each of our rucks (and boy did they take up space), got in our way at every offside, and rarely made their own 5 meters, and played the ball slow. Seemingly, it wasn't just us who fell asleep, but the ref too, who missed at least three obvious touches and was deaf to our calls.

We raced to a 3-0 lead, the third try being a lucky call in our favour for Stu's roll the ball onto the try line. As if he was trying to make up for that blunder, the ref gave as many calls in their favour after that, including a try which obviously wasn't.

They threatened to come back by scoring two tries, but then we got our act together and scored two more.


Anyhow, the easy games are over - the tough teams are up next...

Pakuranga Game 3 - Ho hum dinger...

Playing possibly the worst team we've played this year, we took on the Rockets and the match hardly fired... we spluttered in a most boring fashion to a 9-0 win. Perhaps the only memorable part of the match was the bloke on the other team wearing a green bandana and Chuck Taylors...

Okahu Game 3 - ho hum

We played another team that flocks like sea gulls on attack with up to three backdoors flying one way at once. In the past, we struggle to put these 'non-touch' teams away, but we've improved since, so we won 5-0.

We got two quick ones to start - Kerhan running through on dummy for Chris to jot down, then David running through on dummy for Kerhan to jot down. Soon though, we won't be able to pull this off, with the new rules coming in soon, stating that the dummy cannot cross the try line at all. Its going to create a heap of confusion for both teams, and also for the refs who already suck.

We fell asleep and spent most of the game in our own half due to lazy driving and a ref who kept pinging us for taking apparently taking an extra half step when we played the ball. But then we woke up from our mid-match slumber and Nick squeezed through, followed by Dean and Nick pulling off a really nice Carter move and Kerhan finishing with a quickie.

We're not being well-prepared with these guys though. We've got some top teams on the horizon to play against, and we'll need to be sharper and stop running through the motions...

But till then: ho hum.

Pakuranga Game 2 - Running 2's

Given last week's physical battering we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves up against a team that made touches and not tackles. We started slow... Kerhan dropping the ball the moment we could have scored in the opening minute, 2's without the backdoors, allowing them to run at us all day...

But this was a game where we had our subs. And by the second half they were puffed and we got in their face. We slogged into their space on defence and slicked ourselves around them on attack, and the score blew out in our favour for a 7-1 finish.

I think we can be quite happy with this game. They weren't a dumb team, but we played a smart and composed gameplan.

The girls on the other hand had another blow-out scoreline: 17-0. Against a team of very experienced campaigners throwing no-look passes, they jogged their way through any of the seven gaps that six players leave on the field. This was an improvement from last week though, I think I only saw two occassions where they passed the ball blatanly forward and they now know that to restart the game you go to the centre of the field to tap the ball (well, they were given 17 times to do it in this game alone).
But there's potential: Paddy has a nose for the try line, Louisa loves running from dummy half every time (although she's going to have to remember to pass the ball before getting touched), Ziyen's a pocket rocket on defence, and Sarah and Nikki are willing to do the graft work.

Okahu Game 2 - Fund run

We played a group of doctors funded by the Neurological Foundation giving touch rugby a go, so we ran up 11-0 on them, with everyone dotting down at least once.