Helmet of the week

I would like to thank the Bannockburn captain for giving me the award, a free pint and then Chris Rankin (Captain for the day) concurred and made me drink another free pint. What a bummer. The award was given for stealing their ball in offside positions (in their opinion) LOL.

Gordon Smart said to me instead of complaining about me they should have sorted it out. Well that's another story.

Joking apart my intention at the start of the season was to help with trying to organise the team on a Saturday not to play. A sort of water boy type thing. I have tried to be at training for every session. Just to support the coaches and the players. On Tuesday I realised that something wasn't right. It was as if the small skill level that I possessed had been taken away from me. Its a very strange feeling. Not a problem if your not playing. I have to get lower in the rucks, but if you can't bend your back due to old age its a problem LOL

Well on Saturday it came back to haunt me. The ball in the refs whistle must have been worn out. A big apology to all the Carnoustie players for all the penalties I gave away. I seriously would have gone off if I could but again our options were limited. In my defence players lying on the ball in a ruck really does boil my piss and the ref told me he was refereeing harder when it came to Carnoustie just to make the game more even. Interesting and very honest.

A lesson was also learnt by all our players about discipline open your mouth and you get 10 metres. At the end of the game the ref complemented the Carnoustie players for their discipline.
Maybe we have turned a corner on this subject.

The game was played in very wet conditions with the help of a 40mph wind didn't make for great rugby. Well we came away with a 21-0 victory. A great effort by all.
Chris Rankin missed a reasonably easy penalty kick for him. Then Gordon Smart on the wing did well to score in the corner. We returned to the half way line assuming Chris would miss probably the most difficult conversion kick in the book. I turned around to see the ball being kicked so skillfully over the posts. A cracker.

When I mentioned our options were limited Alec Robertson kindly came along with his kit. No disrespect to Alex but as with every game someone gets injured we held on until he was needed. Yet again he came on and played his socks off. The rugby club are going to sponsor Alec and treat him to a spray tan for his legs. When he came on I had to look twice. I really did think from afar he was riding a chicken.

Again speaking to the referee he asked me how we were getting on and mentioned that he heard Carnoustie were struggling to keep going 3 years ago. I couldn't answer that question but Jock could. I started to realise how precious our little club is.
Well it seems that things are better but its something we need to concentrate on introducing new players bonding as a team and looking after each other.

No doubt we all sit and watch the news at night and think ''Why can't Israel and Palestine not get on''? Well the problem can be brought back to basics and applied to a small rugby club called Carnoustie we all need to get on to make the team and the club better. If this small human experiment works there may be hope for the rest of the world.

On a very positive note we are now 4th in the league I can't wait until next Saturday standing on the touch line. Socially Saturday night was a cracker with a civilised bus journey topped off by a great function at the club.


See you at training.