A team 2nd in their pool at L. Irish

You always need a bit of luck to win a festival. And it was immediately clear the luck of the Irish wouldn't be with us again this year. We'd been grouped with strong "A" teams from Oxford, Farnham and Wimborne. Whereas the eventual winners, Redingensians, had been grouped with our B team, Maidenhead's B team and an uncompetitive team from Tadley, which plays its rugby according to the new, experimental rules.

First up was Oxford - yet another team made-up of bigger, stronger boys. Playing a very direct and physical game, Oxford raced into a 2-0 lead. Both trys however could have been avoided - a couple of missed tackles proving costly. But a try out of nothing just before halftime revitalised the boys and transformed the game. They now believed. Mid-way through the 2nd half, Spencer broke free in our own half and surged towards the Oxford try line. Although he probably didn't have the pace to outrun the Oxford defence, he clearly would have taken some stopping. In fact, the only way the recovering Oxford boy could stop him was illegal - a very high tackle (around the neck) brought Spencer down and he spilled the ball into touch a couple of metres short of the try line. I don't know what the rules say about a penalty try in such a situation. But I'm sure there would have been a very strong case if the ref had deemed the tackle illegal - which he was surely going to do, wasn't he? Er, no! The ref deemed the tackle legal and awarded Oxford a line-out. This decision was debated at length after the game prompted by the Wimborne head coach's intervention. He was absolutely incensed by the ref's decision and led a spirited protest on our behalf. Thanks mate, but it was to no avail. Fortunately we scored shortly after the Oxford line-out which meant we at least drew the game. But it could (and probably should) have been a 3-2 win.

Next up was Farnham. We beat Farnham a couple of times before Christmas. We also played them at the Redingensian's festival. And despite dominating the game then, we could only manage a draw. This was clearly an opportunity to set the record straight. Unfortunately, this game immediately followed the Oxford game and the boys didn't have much recovery time. Initially this worked in our favour as we started brightly and opened up a 1-0 lead. But the longer the game went on, the more the boys tired. The final stages of the game were played in our final 3rd of the pitch. The boys resolutely defended a number of attacks and seemed to have done enough when they forced a knock-on. The ref however awarded Farnham a penalty. I was too far away to see why. Those closer to the action said the penalty was very harsh. The next phase of play (which proved to be the last) saw Farnham score in the corner. So a 1-1 draw, which could easily have been a 1-0 win.

The final group game was against Wimborne, a team we'd never played before. To have any chance of topping the group, we needed Farnham and Oxford to first play out a draw. Farnham beat Oxford 2-0. And this meant our result against Wimborne was academic - even a bonus point win wouldn't be enough. Experimental changes were made to the team for the 1st half. But these didn't work. The team reverted back to normal for the 2nd half and scored 3 unanswered trys. A 3-0 win was a good way to bow out of a festival we might otherwise have won on another day. Nevermind.

We all went to watch the London Irish v Leicester game which was an absolute cracker. And we all sportingly congratulated Redingensians at halftime for taking full advantage of the luck of the Irish on the day