London Irish Festival - Paddy's Day 17th March

We had confidently entered two teams into the festival at the start of the season, but then found that it was a Duke of Edinburgh's expedition for several of our boys, which left us with only half a team. Maidenhead had only entered an A team into the festival, and were delighted to join forces to form East Berks Barbarians, and off we went!

The A team group included Alton (lost 2-0), Frankfurt (won 2-0), Topsham (on tour from Devon, lost 1-0), and arch rivals Maidenhead (lost 2-0, avenging their defeat by us earlier in the season). General summary from the coaches was that we played lots of good rugby, but simply didn't take our chances, and a few mistakes cost us dearly.

The Baabaas started with low expectations, given the number of high quality A teams in the whole festival. First game was against St Peters who were on tour from Cardiff (lost 6-1, but one of our Maidenhead wingers scored the final try for us), Effingham & Leatherhead (lost 5-0), and then we played Stockport, who won the whole tournament last year. By this time the Baabaas had got to know each other better and were beginning to tackle and defend as a team, and string together some attacking phases, and we restricted them to a 4-0 win, which represented a major triumph for us. Our final game was against Henley, who included several Wasps DPP players, and it was 0-0 at half time and 2-0 to them by the end - another great effort.

In the waterfall play-offs, the Baabaas went up against Frankfurt, and had a well deserved 1-1 draw. The A team faced up against Effingham, and went 2-0 down. However, the try of the match came right at the end when Ben Dyson intercepted a loose Effy pass in our own half and ran clear, and kicked ahead as he was about to be caught. Our support players won the chase and breakdown, and got the ball out wide for Scott to score in the corner. We then should have had a final game v Henley, but they had already given up and gone home so we got that one by walkover!

So, hard work on a windy day against some seriously good A teams, but great learning experience nonetheless, and this sets us up nicely for the final few weeks of the season.

by Phil Wells