COWHC Men's 3s vs Teddington Men's 6s - 26th November 2016

Can I play with madness? It seems that on the basis of this week's performance we all can in differing ways!

A run to the hills of Teddington for an afternoon push-back at the same time as England were playing Argentina at Twickenham meant we left plenty of time to avoid traffic. It turned out not to be the purgatory we expected and we arrived at the pitch in good time, albeit shorter on numbers than previous weeks thanks to last week's match being something of a case of "bring your daughter (or son) to the slaughter".

Furthermore, Jack, the trooper that he is in playing after being one of last week's casualties, would be late as he'd umpired the 4s and was bringing Mike from that game to reciprocate.

Still, with a run of wins behind us confidence was high through the warm up. And yet, as in the past couple of matches, we didn't exactly start at the speed of light, more the speed of mud running through treacle. Sluggish, and off the boil Teddington were running free and despite us winning 2 short corners early one (at some point this season we will convert one!) they were on top and scored twice in relatively quick succession.

The first came as a ball across the D found a player at the far post unmarked. I got over to him and made an attempt to block his shot on, the ball deflected into the air, hit the crossbar and dropped into the goal. The second happened was something of a more scrappy affair, as I remember it, with a few half challenges and Phil unlucky to not make a full connection on his save, meaning the ball limped over the line.

Even though we were still very much misfiring, we got ourselves back into the game with an excellent counter-attack. A ball was cleared to the left where Ben picked it up, moved forward and played the ball into the corner. Mulley ran onto it like a greyhound out of the trap, picked it up, drove into the D and then... Holy smoke! Lifted it over the 'keeper and into the back of the goal.

Regrouping at half-time, we came out energised for the second half. Sure, we were far from our usual fluid selves, but the effort we put in saw Teddington being forced further and further back. However some contentious decisions from the umpire meant our resident man on the edge, Corny, was joined by a few others in getting rather frustrated. And then, like some kind of wrathchild, Mulley decided he'd rather be down the road at Twickers and threw himself bodily into the opposition defender. Not only did he manage to injure himself slightly, he also picked up a green card for his troubles.

Down to 10 men, the call was to consolidate... which of course meant to go to all out attack... and for Will to also join Mulley for a breather on the sidelines when, despite winning the short corner, he too picked up a green card.

OK, so, down to 9... screw it, aces high, let's throw everything at them!

It nearly worked too, from the above short, Dav shot, it hit the guy on the line square on the foot... Flick! Yes, look, the umpires arms are moving in the direction of... signalling a 16?!?!

Sadly, while 99 is the number on Corny's back, it's not the number of the beast, and however hard the glare the ump was not to be swayed.

That said, we do only have ourselves to blame for the defeat. Let's suck it up guys and use that feeling next week.

POM was split between Ben and Tom,
DOD I think Corny shaded it... just because. But Mr. Rugby Mulley was a close second.