The Empire Strikes Back!!

The Empire Strikes Back!!

Kim Jong Pratt: Return of the WIN!

After the torrid affair that occurred up North last week our magnificent leader Kim Jong Pratt wanted to get back to winning ways and an aggressive Ashington side stood in our way! Back on home soil on the first team pitch, which offers plenty of space to a ‘youthful’ backline, we expected good things against a usually slow/old and big Ashington side. Body of Glass Marshall was back in the starting line up at centre, so hopes were high that the back three would get some ball wide all be it from an extravagant miss pass or five. The bigger question was could he last more than 5 minutes… James Jeffery’s and Connor offered some electrifying pace out wide with mini Marshall covering Johns mistakes at the back. Gardener comes back into the line-up after he went MIA to solidify our line outs as who know where Ollie Dearden will throw it this week! Selkirk was at 9 and completely sober which for many is a new experience. Shaun looking to retire from Rugby if he does not get a starting place at centre sometime soon comes into the front row. Another change to the front row with Guy Douglas coming in to join our fleet footed hooker Ollie. Kim Jong delighted that Des is away so he can steal his number 8 position, how long will that last! Everyone was slightly excited to hear that Burford was back in the squad (although after video evidence of his kicking in the pre match banter at Berwick we wonder how that actually occurred). Though it gave us an opportunity for some bullying that has been missed in recent weeks. Also Kilgore joins the bench but people are unsure whether he can stop talking long enough to actually play rugby…
With Tommy senior and Des away it was left to Kim Jong to take the warm up. It was nice to actually be able to breathe before kick-off, a luxury not offered after Des’s “warm up”. Kick off loomed and as we lined up Connor could not keep the delight off his face as he took in what appeared to be a man hiding a fair few tyres under his top lining up on the opposing wing. I assume Connor would be using him as a roundabout.
Things started brightly with a good break from Kim Jong himself from the back of the scrum managing a 40 metre amble down the centre of the field before being stopped and some poor handling in the offload broke the move down. We showed straight away the dominance in the scrum as we demolished it. Rumours are there were some strange noises coming from their number 7 (retarded cat stuck in a box was quoted at some point). This has not been confirmed as us backs were too far away standing still looking pretty… It did not take us long to get on the scoreboard after initially not having much of the ball in the first ten minutes. Gardener with some nifty footwork broke the backline before offloading to Dearden allowed us to get right up to the white line, some say Dearden got tired and just needed a rest… but Ollie Baines was there to crash over for the first of many unconverted tries. (Don’t think Greg had his kicking boots on today). Things looked ominous for Ashington as we were on the attack again after mini Marshall caught the high ball and after a mazy run cutting through their backline tried a lovely offload to Gardener’s knees causing a knock on. From then on we put some pressure on the Ashington defence, Tommy Junior got in a little bit of afters with what I can only describe as an umpa lumpa fashioning a bird nest on his head (Jonny Depp needs to keep a tighter leash on his workforce). Tommy instantly made amends for this by smashing the umpa lumpa with a splendid dump tackle. The Umpa being a little hot headed got a little upset over this leading to small brawl on the pitch ( no pun intended in regards to Tommy’s or the Umpa’s height…) and resulted in a sin bin for parties which was a bit harsh! Selkirk got himself on the score sheet soon after with a quick tap and go close to the line, with his low centre of gravity he powered himself over the line. Mind being sober had not calmed his temper, a few times coming close to being sin binned after being put under pressure from a Jeremy kyle regular playing at number 9 for Ashington. Selkirk was involved in the next try as we added further pressure to an angry Ashington team who would not keep their cool. With a box kick over the top from just outside their 22 on the blind side of a ruck both Marshalls chased down, but due to John’s diagonal run across Mini Marshall and his arms flailing everywhere he managed to make the ball first as it was knocked over the try line by their full back allowing him to touch it down. Rumours are going round the club that he actually has pace, we all know this to be a lie!
After appearing to be dominating at the scrum something unusual and illegal happened as Selkirk had the ball kicked from his hands when about to pass the ball. This allowed them to catch us out wide after some poor tackling to put the ball down in the corner, the ref seemed oblivious to this which caused some outrage from Kim Jong but the decision was given. While under the posts their linesman uttered morons under his breath while passing after our complaining of the incident leading to the try. The Marshalls being very mature and easily riled decided to verbally abuse him under the posts which in turn led to Gregg giving them a swift telling off… (It was like having our own father figure playing number 10). With tempers reaching boiling point on both sides, the game became scrappy and both teams struggled to put two phases together after regular handling errors. Selkirk though managed to increase our lead after we got close to their line and spread it wide, john Marshall managing to just get the pass away in time for him to go over. So we went it at half time in control.
At half time saw a change to the backline with the “speedster” Glass Marshall replaced by Kilgore. Instantly the pitch became a louder venue with Kilgore’s mouth on overload. Again we applied the pressure but with silly handling errors Ashington caught us out twice to put pressure on the score board for the first time in the match. We kept Ashington high up the pitch resulting in them kicking a lot, this allowed mini Marshall to try out more of his mazy runs with Connor in support. Connor finding himself with the ball out wide let his pace do the talking as he torched the grass to score in the corner, and with an over exuberant celebration made sure he caused uproar from the Ashington side. Soon followed another score after Kilgore’s cross field kick was latched onto by James Weaver as he made his way up the pitch passing two of their players and before being tackled managed to offload to mini Marshall (who was the only one able to keep up with him) to run it into the corner. Then on came Mr Burford for his first appearance in a 3’s shirt in weeks, he had a key part to play when it all went Pete tong for Kilgore… which is about to happen! On a 22 dropout Kilgore tried a quick one and ended up tapping straight to their player and put us on the back foot. We managed to get the ball back after some good defensive work from the pack. This included Pratt showing that his low tackles are more dangerous than his high tackles, as his smashed Ashington’s main ball carrier their number 8; it took him a few minutes to regain his feet. Kilgore had is opportunity to make amends for this soon after with the chance to spread it wide, trying what I can only call as an attempt at a Rangi Chase style dummy (if you haven’t seen this I suggest you watch it on the bbc sport website- magic!) and ended up throwing a pop over Burford’s head and trying to catch it on the other side but knocking on! Safe to say we know who got the dick of the day award!! Eventually the final whistle went with us back to winning ways all be it with a scrappy performance. There was one last bit of entertainment when Tommy Junior decided to bring a flash bang into the changing room leading to Kilgore nearly shitting his pants, never a dull moment at Novos!

There were plenty of good performances David Marshall was amazing all game, Andy Gardiner rucked and carried the ball well but Man of the Match goes to Oliver Dearden who was excellent all day in attack, defence, scrummaging and also threw some straight lineouts.

Report by David Marshall, submitted 7 days after the game