Midlands 5 East (North), Sat 24 Feb 2007

Worksop 0 - Hamians 29

Fighting on the pitch at hamians over the years has been common place given most opposition sides envy for our schoohboy good looks , the inbreed confident swagger and off hand mannerisims together with sarcastic wittersisms...

Playing with the welsh , a taff referee you can expect celtic blood running high and the odd riot ( raping pillaging and sex with sheep etc ) but a respected middle aged accountant ( who was not even playing at the time ) being involved with fistycuffs with the opposition winger on the touchline .....we view u in another light Mr Wynne Jones [ shing if accountants fight , when u find out i bet u become a dental nurse or something ]


Maroon is not purple !!!let us all not forget ........

Worksop away in february ...banana skin terriortry given in living memory we cannot remember winning up their ...what is the pitch like guaranteed wet and the sun don't shine mutch ..oh they eat babies whole , talk in a strange tongue and generally they have a pack of considerable size ...

but they serve the best snap after a game and the beer is cheap !

So when injury , international calls , holidays , houdinisism , kiddies parties and the like ....Captain Hobbit ralied his able bodies to meet

14 ...15 ...no fit replacements Pikey had dealt him a hand where tactics and the multi tasking hamian positional play came to the fore

Left with 15 and by the time we got to worksop we had 17 ....amazing what a fertile mind can conjure up from the hamians player pool

the line up in numerical order went

The FAT prop , anvil , mozza, pud , stickie, cookie , jp , jezzer, vaz, lamin, hobbit , adonis the greek , yorkie , the ice man , epsy at fullback

Bench Big Rich , and Jonsey 'the streetfighter ' Wynne Jones

The worksop experience was as expected the pitch was quaint , wet to boggy underfoot and designed to take the long stud to flipper .

Their side was experienced and well rounded the one young blond back at 8 stone was a third of the average weight of most of the worksop front five and inside centre ...

We knew by instinct and past history that the barrel masquerading as the scrum half would use the black and weight wall of forwrds to lumber down the pitch from set piece to set piece and bullock their way over , or release the larger backs from a short distance out ....

And so the game began

Hamians recived kick deep , and defended . The conditions underfoot were such running up the hill was sticky , despite good ball hamians found themselves pinned in their half for the first 15 mins .

Knowledge of the ground meant kicks and chips into the corners from worksop kept up the pressure

Hamins backs repeatedly challenged with good first phase ball , passes adjudged forward when break through made . Clear that with space opportunities could be spotted . The underfoot conditions meant slipping and anchor foot to kick was ludicrous at times .

Worksop eventually concided penalty allowing lmain to clear to halfway . Clever line out play and sticky delivered vaz good ball

lamin deliverd hobbit on the crash , ball reycled quickly twice , worksop conceed penalty .

Clear the worksop back row competitive and quick enough in the conditions to slow down ball

lamin finds touch 20 yds out , great catch and drive , spins out and drive again , jez drives on followed by cookie and front row drive over, vaz spins and feeds lamin who dummis and crashes over with two would be tacklers

7 nil

Poor kick off , scrum back

Hamins comfortable on own ball despite massive weight disadvantage , move goes right , forwards and backs taking up ball . Another penalty and good field positon found .

Line out ball good , ball spilt in tackle on short pop

from scrummage worksop sustain pressure for 5 minutes , sevral line out drives and scrummages in 22 . Clear that hamians defensive drills and bllody mindedness are not going to conceed soft scores

Great scrummage defence results in put in to scrum , half back off side lamin releases pressure with good touch find

Line out sweet as , backs take up , epsy on short ball fails to hold . Scrummage good drive and wheel , knck on and hamins put in ...good ball and drive backs sweep left , yorkie held up short ...

Ball recycled and sweeps right , vaz has a go , forwards winning ball , conditions difficult but lamin on short pop to george ball richott's into epsy hand who crshes under the posts

14 nil Worksop if cannot slow the game down and conditons do not force mistakes are struggling

Kick off fielded deep and ball taken up , move blind adonis half brak epsy continues , ball taken up short by hobbit

Ruck over and VAZ takes forward to jp who crashes upfield , quick ball stickie at scrum half passes to lamin , draws cover and epsy injects pace straightening an verying infiled to fraw full back and reverse pass to Yorkie who finishes from 30 metres out in the corner

Great try , well worked and 19 nil

Fat prop catches kick off , an man and ball sissors . Melee forms and falls into touch

Worksop clearly not happy with the score or how their weight advantage is being nullified take short line out and drive , maul spins and mozza swaps punches with large second row ( actually mozza connected and others missed ) winger runs 20 metres and jonsey minding his business behind the mozza melee gets clattered . All hell breaks loose off the pitch with the ref on it ...calms down and worksop winger sin binned

half time

Hobbit discusses concentration needed as the pitch conditions mean if play gets in certain areas difficult to get out of , unless penalty kick

Lamin kicks long , worksop clear to touch .

Line out offers hobbit chance , miss to adonis and half break ...ice still waiting for ball and eating jaffa cakes on wing

Worksop given penalty and clear to touch

follows period of play centered round first phase possession and hamins trying to run ball , and worksop usng the more direct approach

cookie injured , big rich comes on and anvil on the back row

line outs and scrummage effected but soon settle down

worksop slowing ball down and ref starts to penalise ...lamin finds touch , hamins win ball and ball spins wide only for backs to overun ball and worksop scramble defense to recover .

Half break from adonis gains 35 yds ball quickly recylced to ice on wing , scramble away by defense
from resulting lineout ball loose , great pressure through on scrumhalf and bobbling ball dived on by anvil and with paratrooper style roll he crouches to feet and dives towards line to outstretch and score

24 nil

worksop will not conceed defeat and series of driving mauls , forwrdspushes gain good field position .the fringe defence from hamisn and the unseen work of the tight five recover the ball and hamins counterattack , swift hands , ice , eps , adonis and yorkie tackled ten yds short , ball snaffled and scramble defence results in kick put of defence

epsy at full back demonstrates his ability to swoop on the ball and run in arcing run across the pitch , offers two sissor options and slices through defence with blistering acceleration coupled with those majestic strides and upper body swerve , realising he has corner flagging defence cutting off his individual moment of glory ( and avoiding the touchline ) he absorbs the would be tackler and off loads to that shadow we call Jezza who finishes the move off with aplomb by galloping in the last 15 yds past a despairing defence ( endless hours on that gym treadmill watchin pespiring young women in lycra in the aerobic classes at the gym have finally paid off)

29 nil the game pettered out with hamis pressing for more trys although Vaz giving away a penalty for shouting at a player who he wanted to tackle was a first ...


Great tacklin by pack and rucking result in worksop flanker leaving with concussion . Credit to both sides even with game effectively won worksop keen to score and hamins proud defence wanting to mantain their 5th clean sheet in the league this season

Some of the verbal exchanges at the death were shameful for both sides , albeit most were started from only two individuals

The whistle sounded and both sides trudged off the pitch . Albeit the number of bites recieved from the local insect wiidlife had one hamin in the tropical diseases department of the Queens Medical Centre on sunday to receive considerable painfull injections in both lower limbs to reduce the swelling and blood constrictions to both calves circulation.

A job well done to all hamins who made the historical trip

Training tues , please bring trainers as well as boots ( wellies or flippers)plenty of moves to perfect as Casuals are are next opponents in the league ( and after playing them twice we will need a few new drills to torment them with )

If our friends over in the Far East at Boston are reading this we wish them all the best in ERF national 1/4 final on saturday against Billaracy .