Garlic, onions, floppy hats, wine and a cockeral...and The Bulldog tent and a crate of Ruddles!

Throw in 42 Frenchman and Thamesians and oursleves and you have the begginings of a good afternoon of rugby.

The tournamemnt started at around 1:30 The Bulldog tent was resplendent betwen the pitches displaying the English and French flags with Iron Man Bianchi serving wine, Ruddles and slivers of Harrods famous pork pies....

We kicked off our first game against an invitation Thamesian side that included a number of our gallic friends.

Unfortuneley, due to Rupert's piles that had blown up again we were cut short in the front row and played unopposed scrums. But Mac was back for the w/end and played a good game at scrum half. The lineout went well with Steve working well with Deano and the ball moving around quite well. In the first half we expemented with positions and played Stuart on the wing to sound out the crash winger approach. Also, he has been put up by his wingers for the end of season award for the sticky hands trophy. This trophy is awarded annually for the player who holds on to the ball!

With Ian and Matt at centre and Michael B on one wing and Jamie at full back and Roger wearing the No 10 shirt again we had a very effective back line.

The forwards were well lead by Lord lenthall who once again had a superb game playing his usual on-field tactical game and retiring to the tent at selected moments to confer with the coach, Iron Man Bianchi and re-charging with a good glass of Merlot.

Our rucking in the forwards is getting better but we misssed very much the forward drives and charges that Lenny bribgs to the game. Our outsides found room to move and Jamie took a high ball and went on one of his long penatring runs that finished in a supreb try under the posts. Roger converted and we started to move ahead after The Thamesians had scored the first try....we missed a few tackles!

The game was very even but we had the advantage of playing a controlled game
with good ball being chanelled back to the outsides and although we were pushed back a number of times Roger's boot put us right back in contention with long touchline kicks.

The Thamesians back line had problems trying to defend against both pace and strength of our outsides and by this time Stuart had returned to play at centre and Matt moved back to fullback and Mike Buckley gave a good all round game in the forwards (....only on a temp basis Mike). Clarkie at back row put in some very big hits and stopped a number of try scoring moves by the Thamesians.

With constant pressure we worked our way back in to the Thamesian half and suddenly the ball finished up on the blind side but came back inside for Kevin to score a very good try. We started to work up niceley and Jamie completed the score with another try and we won by 17 points to 5!

Onwards and back to the tent for a quick pork pie, a beer and then we were drawn against the French who had just beated the other Thamesian side.

This was a very different game indeed and the French played a very open and fluid game indeed with the ball moving across the park quickly and with always at least one extra man over. The French forwards were a strange old lot reaking of garlic and very colourfull with a mixture of short fat carved out of granite types to small little chaps that passed and ran at a fair old rate.

The touchline was well suppored and one of the highlights was Max being "courted" by a randy Wheatland terrier.....I leave the rest to your imagination.

We only played 20 mins each way and lost by a couple of tries . We all enjoyed the game and it was off to the Clubhouse but not before arranging a working party for the tent. Our thanks to Jamie and Ian for helping Tony with the tent.

At The Clubhouse we were pleased to help out with entertaing the French and in fact we received a very nice litte trophy....we in turn replied and prsented the French with a Bulldog shirt.

GREAT GAME AND EVENING

BUT no one brought the balls back from the pitch....this is not the first time and we have now lost three rugby balls and have no more left! If anyone has a ball perhaps they would like to bring it along for the next game ..... I have an empty ball bag and a pump!! Nice one.

It is important that everyone thinks like a Bulldog .....help to take out post protectors, water bottles, posts, balls etc. and then help to bring them back. Also the shirts don't just jump into the shirt bag...help is needed. The team levy has to be taken. These are just a few of the things that need to be arranged on the day....