Warrington 0 - 30 Manchester

a convincing win against a Warrington side fielding six Under 12 players. Hats off to their lads and coaches for keeping going in the face of adversity.

Rarely will we turn up at an away fixture so much earlier than the opposition after such an eventful journey. After Andrew had got us all up before we’d gone to bed we set off in convoy from Grove Lane. We got as far as the A34 before we had lost the Karate Kid and his mum and the convoy had been broken.

Scribbler was chauffeured to the game by Wolfy junior and senior - he refused to wear the hat and wouldn’t let me sit in the back, but never mind at least he gave me sweets!. The most exciting move of the day came when the Chauffeur foxed everyone by going through the Crematorium Car Park like a Wacky Races move to find Walton Lea Road and within minutes we had arrived at Warrington Rugby Club. Usain’s dad remembered he had been to Warrington before and that they usually smeared dog poo over the pitches - we could find no canine excrement, so after changing we then went into the longest warm-up this side of the Ice Age!

Eventually the game kicked off - with a notable positional change from the previous week. McRef had become Mc Touch Judge at least he didn’t disappoint and continually failed to keep up with play with his new found remit as well. It wasn’t long before the tone was set for the day with two early tries scored in the corner down the left. It could and should have been a lot more sooner, however a combination of good tackling from the Warrington full back (their best player by a distance) and us getting a bit sloppy at finishing off overlaps only slowed down the inevitable.

The most notable man on the pitch must have been Dave ‘call me Dave or sir’ the Ref. I think he may have been the only one of the Warrington set-up at the club when we got there, although I think this was mostly because he hadn’t left from the night before!! . We decided in the end that his signal for held up began to resemble a greek folk dancer - if only we’d had the music!!

He was very open with the boys about them being allowed to chat with him and ask him questions. The skipper asked a sensible clarifying question about hand offs and Humpy junior clarified whether it was hot dogs or sausage rolls after the game - so all the important matters being sorted we proceeded to kick off.

The first half saw us score six tries, we converted two of them, Baby Rhino and Wolfy had a couple of tries each I think and I was keeping my eye on them for jug avoidance tactics. The first half had also seen Brad Pitt making a few barnstorming runs down the right, clearly under instruction from Mother who wants to preserve his good looks and avoid him being drafted into the forwards......The coaches decided that this 15 should see the game out and then when the margin exceeded 40, we would make wholesale changes and bring all of the power of the bench to bear.

We didn’t have too long to wait before we wrapped up the victory margin that meant max points in the league - the ref is asked to blow up at a 40 point margin.

All of the bench came on and there were some positional changes made. Humpy junior forgot about sausage rolls long enough to play scrum half and provide continued good service to the back line, Sutty had a couple of runs with the ball and Noisy ended up being held up over the line twice. There was strong running with the ball from the Karate Kid and Motty in the back row and a lovely inside drift from Ferg to score under the posts. Usain was clearly doing his work deep in the bowels of scrums, rucks and mauls and may be watching for canine poop in line with earlier family observations.

So all in all a satisfactory day but we will face many sterner tests over the season and as the coaches have made clear to the boys lets put this to the back of our minds and think how we can improve next week.

Speaking of which we will be at our old friends Wilmslow next week in a friendly(?) - McTouch Judge and Scribbler will need to check that we are allowed into The Memorial Ground. Watch this spaces for arrangements.

On a serious note it will be good to start to rebuild our friendly rivalry with our friends at Wilmslow and I would ask that we all make an extra special effort to be sociable and good guests after a competitive fixture.

Still no tidy room and tea making means there is no mention again this week for Scribblers Son.