Never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many, to so few.
As the world seems hell bent on decending deeper into war, we must count our blessings that we are currently at least, far enough away from all that madness, and get to enjoy the freedom to watch our kids play rugby on a Sunday morning.
The greater U12s squad, much like the Great Britain depicted in the famous wartime speech I began with, need to be very grateful to the 12 lads that turned out today to face the mighty Topsham, 20+ deep, with quality plus spares available in all positions, our few defended our badge with valour.
At the outset we would have been favourites to be on the wrong end of a hiding today, as indeed we were when Topsham visited Allhallows back in the Autumn.
That said, we got off to a very good start, winning the first quarter. Our pack was at full strength, and in the breakdowns we had control.
The Topsham threat came from their quick hands spraying the ball wide, bypassing the melee, and giving our backs a lot to do in defence.
2nd and 3rd quarters went to Topsham.
Our boys somehow soft in the tackle, which is not a complaint of late, and had you turned off the sun and put the opposition in Honiton shirts on a Thursday night our boys would cut them in half.
On reflection there is some nuance in the fact that all of our boys were 30 mins deep by this point, whereas Tops had the luxury of replacing the whole front row, and sending on the Pom squad just as we didn't need it.
Our grit dug in, in the forth, and a terrific come back left Tops stunned as one by one, we clawed our way back, like something out of a terminator movie, we just refused to die.
In the end we called a truce. 7-7
Moment of the match today came during our soft middle spell, when our tackling was so inept it had me reaching for the statins.
A lively player heading full send for the corner and about to score got torpedoed off the pitch by George PB, one of our second rows coming across to the aid of our winger. Some much needed aggression which triggered our retaliation. ??⭐️?
Joe had other plans today. He was off to play bat and ball for Devon so unavailable.
Short of a full team I put out a plea on the group, and on seeing the signal, Batman came to our aid. Seeing his symbol lighted up high above his beloved Ton, our superhero turned out.
Joe is consistently one of our best players week in week out, today no exception, and by responding to my call to arms a worthy Man of the match. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️?
We have some new players that have trained of late, and I feel the time is near to release them into the wild and see how they fair on a Sunday.
Watch this space.
Chris.