The Stoneman Reports

Match Report – St. Bernadettes 12 Clifton Nomads 55

Before I begin, I just want to point out that as Man of the Match, I was the best player and I’m writing this so I can say what I want. However, Ross Jennings has paid me a lot of money to say he was by far the best player on the day, so this will be a recurring theme.

Mary’s cried off, so our trip to Whitchurch to play St.Bernadettes proved to be an interesting day. The Nomad’s normal order of battle is generally different each week and this was no exception with many returning players to the side; Paul Davies fresh from Barbados, Ben MacCarthy fresh from thoroughly enjoying life and Barney Kent fresh from tweeking a club webpage or two. The rest of us were fresh from our momentous victory the previous week against Cotham Park 10-36, so were feeling rather smug, superior and generally against warming up.

So we made our way across the old Bristol Airport runway to the pitches to be told it was to be uncontested scrums as they had no front row or some such thing. From previous years experience and because of our scrummaging prowess this usually precipitates attempts to stitch us up. Cheating bastards Old Bristolians used this one in the past. Anyway I’m not bitter, they only won the league doing it two years ago lol. This time the opposition were short so the game was going to be faster. Front row most disgruntled!

Our early confidence proved our undoing in the first half. Scientific analysis by Nasa, GCHQ, and Cern scientists has proved that upsetting an already completely biased referee and failing to tackle at all in the 1st half can lead to; disadvantageous and shameful scorelines, quite amusing arguing amongst ourselves, stratospherically high penalty count against us, me being yellow carded for absolutely nothing (haha) and general dullness.

To be fair, both teams were committed but for us it was just not working and we ended the first half 12-10 down. Notables in the half were Captain Martin Jennings, Chris Randall, Ryan Jamieson and Barney Kent who kept us in the game with good breaks and straight running but we were just not finishing well.

Martin decided that what was needed was an old fashioned half time rant. It proved to be a turning point, much to the surpise of all involved, including Aftab. Invigorated, myself included from my 10 minute rest ( thank you ref!), we proceeded to take Bernadette’s apart with some great team rugby, hard fast straight running, simple passes, pick and go’s and great interpassing and backing up. I even made a break and ran 50 metres causing mild heart failure. A different team from the 1st half although it is what is expected from a Nomads team which sets itself high standards. I cant remember who scored all the tries but Martin had four. Surely this is a juggable offence! Bonus!

Having checked my account, it is at this point I have to say Ross did not score but made multiple breaks, tackles and offloads. He was the best player on the day. Well done Ross and thank you for the payment.

Anyway, great commitment and great rugby played in the latter half saw us to overwhelming victory finishing the game 55-12. Thanks goes out to Bernadette’s for making us welcome at Bamford Rd.