Welwyn 4th XV 29 Finchley 2nd XV 0

The match that will probably be the ‘crunch’ league decider between Welwyn 4ths and Finchley 2nd was played out at Welwyn on 17th Feb. Finchley were up for this one as they were just 2 points behind league leaders Welwyn and were out warming up with bosh bags and those funny hold, hold, hold, press warm ups. Tiff was taking notes about this to build on his coaching handbook that has yielded many pearls of wisdom this season and must surely be the reason why the 4ths are sitting at the top of the league. Wiggy wasn’t allowed to warm up after his now famous head on smash into the posts the other week when he wasn’t watching where he was going in a warm up passing drill- famous as it featured as moment of the match in the oppositions web- site. Onto the game.

A nervous start saw Welwyn stuck in their 22 and conceding penalty after penalty. Luckily their kicker was even worse that Smithy so we got through the first 10 minutes battering without conceding any points. The game was just starting to turn Welwyns' way after our third win against the head in the scrum when the backs introduced their new killer move- basically it is a dummy miss move where Tiff gets completely in the way and headbuts the ball through to the other centre Birkin who was supposed to gather and sprit through. It’s looking good boys and with practice must surely get the move of the season award at the year end awards- keep up the good work.

James Rapley (the incredible bending man) worked wonders in the air and stole everything after being hoisted to about 15 foot by Mister Zombie and Big Al. This dominance combined by excellent rucking and mauling by Gibbo and Diggler saw the game tilt Welwyn’s way and allowed us to camp in the opposition 22 for the last 20 minutes of the first half. The pressure turned into points with Smithy managing to knock all 3 penalties between the sticks and Rapley bursting through from a well worked move.

Half time turned around 14 nil but it should have been 21 points. This bit is true. You gotta picture the forwards rumbling on phase after phase until about 15 yards out when the thunderbolt that is Fyson bursts off the side like a demented Tazmanian Devil and surges through all to break through to the open try line. But just as he was about to do his Jason Robinson style dive the ref blew up as he’d accidentally butted into the ref on the charge. Rich made up for it afterwards with his kick to clear our lines when Finchley were nearly through and it was amazing to see the ball sailing neatly into touch about 30 metres downfield – another product of Tiff’s coaching to produce 15 all round ball players.

The second half saw Leon’s ultimate tackle- the ref blew up for a high tackle but we’re now sure it was high just kinda bizarre as he looked like he was humping the opposition full back like a Labrador on heat. It also saw Birkins 50 metre surge where physics came into play as he accelerated and accelerated until he encountered the speed wobble and couldn’t change direction and cut in for a try and ended up crashing into touch- good effort though.

More immense scrummaging with big efforts from front row Adam, John and Fyson saw another take against the head 7 metres out with Zombie (respect) trundling over the line, then falling backwards and then losing the ball somewhere only for Ben to scrape it up and John White ploughing over the line from the resulting set piece. Another try came from new boy Diggler, who is coming on well under Tiff’s coaching, saw the game well and truly sealed with the final flourish coming from a Smithy drop goal.

Team: (without telegraph style performance indicators): Adam, John ; Fyson ; Rapley, Al, Diggler, Gibbo, Mister Zombie, Ben, Smithy, Wiggy (mind the posts), Tiff, Kris, Leon, Craig and Phil, Justin, Mitch and Neal