Woz on everyone…. Not sure I’ll say anything about my mate the Orange Buffoon, I’m right out of shouting at the TV and radio. It’s crazy he’s been allowed to get to be the President. I don’t think he can actually read either but whatever!… “wake up Americans” before it’s too late!

Last week I went to Paul “Bomber” Harris’ funeral on Friday and there was a lot of people there from all the Devon clubs which is a measure of all that he has done for Rugby in Devon. There were many nice tributes and it was ten deep at the bar back at Crediton’s club for the wake. No doubt he will be missed.

On to Saturday …. It was down to Plymouth for the Ton massive to take on league leaders Devonport which was at their unbeaten fortress. I will add, they have also only lost one game all season so far. Oh, yes… that loss, wasn’t it at our place? Surely we couldn’t do the double on them?
They have a stadium to play in and obviously they also only use the pitch for game days as the pitch looked in great condition, despite all the rain.
Nice to see a clan of Wrights there watching Charlie on his playing debut. To everyone’s surprise Charlie’s brother Harry was also there as he was back from Australia for a two week holiday. Great to see him supporting the Ton.
So… to the game, no rain if you can believe it. We started well and got a fairly early score out wide following some slick hands and some good interplay. They weren’t happy and got back on the score sheet with one of their own soon after but they didn’t convert so we were ahead. It was pretty “even stevens” and there was no love lost either as there were several stoppages for the ref to have a word about “over exuberance” from both sides. A good break to get us behind the defence saw quick ball moved to the mid field and a great pass out of the tackle saw us able to canter a try under the posts. Back came the opposition to score again but again it wasn’t converted so we turned around 10-14 up.
Despite some clear Ton dominance in the scrum it was still pretty even all round. We broke the deadlock again after an impressive turn over scrum and the blind side break we were just stopped short out wide but the ball was quickly spun to the other side of the pitch for an easy score. Unfortunately we didn’t turn the screw and Services then finished strongly…. they then got their third try and the last ten minutes were very tense indeed especially as we also seemed to have fallen foul of the ref with several unexplained penalties going against us… Big defence was called for and yes! We hung on to win by 15-21 how important were the conversions. What a win and that is now our sixth win on the trot ( I said six last week but the eagled eyed were quick to correct me on that fact.). The full report with names etc is on our website and if you like a good old league table you can look on the RFU’s website. It’s all pretty tight at the top and frustratingly we are still in 5th sport but we have a game in hand if we were to win that we’d go up to second.
The twos unfortunately didn’t play and this is something we need to address as we couldn’t get a team due to a lot of injuries and the dreaded “away game” unavailability’s. Frustrating.

So Sunday… it rained and rained again so, frankly there was no real chance of playing any games at Tonsville and a lot of games across the county struggled to be played, however surprisingly the games went ahead at Sarries who are normally the first to call of games, maybe their relationship with the council has improved. The 8’s played and the boys and girls all played well. The 10’s had a tough day there but went down fighting (not literally!) and Sarrie just snuck it. The 12’s started slowly but after a n early snooze in the first half came back strongly in the second half but they also went down but only just. The 16’s had a great win by 27-17. Big thanks once again to Simon Lancaster who had to ref the game.

Has it rained this week or what?… I’m a tad (well a lot ) worried about any games being played again at home this weekend. We shall see! We have the Willis clan from Blamphayne Sawmills doing the sponsors lunch this week and big thanks to them as they have helped the club no end over many years. I did wonder this morning as I tried to drive to Ottery, how they would be getting to the Mill to go to work as under the Iron bridge, the road was impassable.
Anyway… They still want to do the event so game or no game lunch will go ahead and there’s some proper rugger on the telly as well. Please come down and support the club with games cancelled money’s get a tad tight! Let’s not be negative though and plan for the game being on. We will be playing Dartmouth who are to be fair having a pretty torrid season so far. They prop up the league at the mo and are well adrift. I guess the smart money is on a home win for us but as I always say.. “complacency tends to bite you on the bum if you don’t get a game head on”.

The two’s hopefully will going down to Topsham for their merit table game.

Sunday the plan is … against Yeovil the 7’s, 10’s and 12’s. The 9’s and 11’s are at there’s and the 8’s have a rearranged cup game not sure where or who against? The 13’s are away at Newton Abbott the 15’s are home against Sarries which is rearranged from last week. And finally the 16’s are playing Chard at home. James Vince is still trying to find a game for the 14’s. Fingers crossed we can play some rugby somewhere!

What else …..Oh… one bit of good news. Natalie our safe guarding officer put in for us be in the vote for the Tesco’s “Stronger starts” voting thingy and we were selected…What’s it about? Well…. you know you shop and then get given a blue token to vote and you get to vote on three organisations on the way out… I’ve been doing it religiously. The prize pot is £1500 and if we win we will use the money to get some training bibs and flags. So, vote, vote, vote… thanks to Mr Tesco’s for considering us and of course Natalie for applying, we have until the end of March to fill our box up. Don’t forget to ask for yours as I don’t think the checkouts give you them automatically.

There’s also a Junior quiz night at the club on the 30th which is a Friday it’s teams of six and £6 per person. Clare Derryman is organising it so if you want a table give her a bell on07851270134. Always a good night.

Think that will do for this week

#UTT

Jez