Sedgley Tigers, Schrodinger’s Cat and an Elephant in the Room

Start of a new season. Some synonyms for ' start' are inception, birth, initiation. Hmmm. Could get going with a few of these but all probably not appropriate for the beginning of our Under13's season.
Our first foray into junior rugby. The boys have not yet started to sprout beards and sing tenor ( and no, Statto none of the mums have either. Our HRT is working fine thanks) but still had enough testosterone pumping for the first game. However, it was controlled testosterone with a fresh and more relaxed approach to start of the season.
The day dawned bright and sunny. Hurrah! No need for thermals just yet. Statto was sporting a fine Samoan rugby sevens shirt. Knowing that Mrs Statto has a thing about Samoans I wondered whether he had planned activities other than watching the Manchester Derby for Sunday afternoon ( and I bet some of the coaches rather wished they had other things to do to take their minds off the final score!).
Some optimists legs were sporting shorts. Those of us who have given up exfoliation for the season were in longer legged attire. Although in my case, shorts would cover most of my legs anyway. Talking of exfoliation, Statto also seems to be sprouting some fine facial hair. Perhaps he is getting a head start on Movember. That, or he is getting so into microbes etc, he is channeling a David Bellamy look. Luckily the HRT is keeping the old facial hair at bay for me. Else it would be difficult to tell me and Statto apart.
Nice to see all the old faces about ( some older than others!) and also some new ones. It is great to welcome some new members to the team. We hope they will enjoy being part of the Manchester Under 13's.
My mum's impressions of the game was that all the boys enjoyed the game and they seemed to adjust well to the huge pitch. My eyes didn't. I'll need binoculars soon. At least I have a good excuse for not being able to provide much actual information about the game now.
The ball seemed to flow well in the first half particularly. I wasn't there for a lot of the second half ( older son duties).
Anyhow, Statto has all the interesting information so I will hand over at this juncture to the maestro.....

The nonspatial continuum where events take place in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future between rugby seasons, which we’ve come to know as ‘summer’, has become for me, a period of quiet reflection and intellectual contemplation, where I can sit back and take stock of the universe and my role in it - usually until the wife realises that my aesthetic pretentiousness is also a tool for avoiding domestic chores. And there’s nothing finer at times like this than a cold glass of Chablis after a hard day’s work aestheticizing at the office. And by ‘hard day’s work’ I mean ‘sat scratching my arse’ and by ‘the office’ I mean ‘my shed’ and by ‘Chablis’ I of course mean ‘window cleaning fluid’.

This year in keeping with some of history’s other greatest minds - Samuel Pepys, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Bridget Jones - I decided to keep a diary. Pepys also had to bury his cheeses as the Great Fire of London raged, and I’ve had to hurriedly bury lots of things in the past too, (sometimes while they were still moving) so it seemed like a plan. Before it’s serialised in the Times Literary Supplement here’s some excerpts:

Friday 2nd August 3.17pm
My new neighbour sneezed. Instinctively and with good manners I said “bless you!” She said thanks, but looked a little confused that her wardrobe was talking to her.

Monday 5th August 11.52pm
Took a look in Schrodinger’s grave to see if he was in there.

Wednesday 14th August 2.28pm
“AVALANCHE!” screamed the wife. Which, if anything, made the situation worse.

Saturday 17th August 11.43am
The working party had an extra job to do this morning at Grove Park as one of our rugby mums finally admitted her back hair was out of control when she leant against some flock wallpaper in the clubhouse and had to be cut free.

Wednesday 28th August 7.46am
Twerk and Selfie have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Future and Optimism have been removed.

Saturday 31st August 10.34am
WHILST listening to Radio 5 Live, I heard the reporter say that the rugby season was just around the corner. Imagine my disappointment when I walked to the end of my road, only to find a cat being sick under an abandoned Ford Fiesta.

TEETERING ON THE PRECIPICE OF DESPAIR
When your milk of human kindness has evaporated by July 27th you know that the summer’s going to be slightly less enjoyable than being surgically joined at the hip to a crocodile. So it came as no surprise to learn that children are nothing more than an elaborate scam dreamt up by shops, costing an average of £150,000 to raise. As a child owner, I looked at my son as he took to the pitch against Sedgley Park and thought “I could’ve had a chateau in Burgundy. It looked nice in the hospital so we brought it home. It’s now nearly 13 and my house remains a nightmarish vortex of noise and faeces.”

Still dwelling on this I cautiously approached my research subjects. For the past five years I have spent most of my days with these wild Manchester mums. Their home, and mine, has been the misty wooded slopes of Cheadle Hulme, where eight lofty volcanoes - the highest is 14,787 feet - soar majestically into the clouds.

During this time I have become well acquainted with many of the mums, and they with me. They roam the charity shops and bin areas behind Bargain Booze in groups, and now accept my presence almost as a member. I can approach to within a few feet of them, and some, especially the more addled and confused, have come even closer, picking up my camera strap, and examining the buckle on my knapsack . ( Chunky's knapsack doesn't have buckles Rhys, and you are both Welsh! - Steph). One has even played with the laces on my boots, though I have a feeling that she did not suspect that the boots were, in fact, connected to me.

This familiarity was not easily won. The textbook instructions for such studies are merely to sit and observe. I wasn’t satisfied with this approach; I felt that the Manchester Mums would be doubly suspicious of any alien object that only sat and stared. Instead, I tried to elicit their confidence and curiosity by acting like one of them. I imitated their feeding and grooming, and later, when I was surer what they meant, I copied their vocalisations, including some startlingly deep belching noises.

Sadly I found that over the school holidays their drinking had reached such levels that their hip flasks are now full-length-leg flasks.

ADDRESSING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Now that our boys have taken the next step in rugby and become juniors so too have these mums, who from this season on will be known as Manchester U13s Grannies (motto: “You’re never fully dressed without a smile... or whenever you’re anywhere near a men’s rugby team”).
Ladies! It doesn’t matter how much you profess to like wearing cargo slacks or listening to ‘the Dizzee Rascals’. Go on, put on some comfortable, sensible shoes, crack open a four-pack of White Zeppelin Cider, burp your way through your entire Elton John collection and face the onset of weird skin blotches with dignity. I’d managed to get this far when, in a scene eerily reminiscent of Suffragette Emily Wilding Davidson’s fall under King George V’s galloping horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby in 1913, Steph flung herself under an on-rushing Leigh Halfpenny shouting she was “taking one for the girls.” And so began another season...

DUE TO INFLATION, A PICTURE IS NOW ONLY WORTH 216 WORDS...
... So you’ll have to use your imaginations. We were under way! Manchester kicked long and immediately attacked with purpose into the Tigers half. Great early pace to this game from the home side. There was a good early ruck won by the home team on Sedgley’s 22 yard line. From the released ball Manchester tried to score in the corner but a fine tackle by the visitors stopped the move dead in it’s tracks. Back came Sedgley forcing a lineout on the half way line which Manchester managed to steal and again the boys sped into the opposition half looking to break them down. A knock on in the Sedgley half gave Manchester their first scrum and a great, short pass by a Manchester player, spraying the ball into the centre of the pitch for a waiting team mate to steam roller his way over from five yards out to score the first try of the new season. Unfortunately the resulting conversion attempt, from a narrow angle and quite far out, was missed. All the play to this point was concentrated in and around the Sedgley 22 yard line with Manchester playing at an excellent tempo.

The second try began with some fine Manchester rucking in the middle of the Sedgley half turning the ball over once again. Three smartly made passes were flipped across the width of the pitch found a Manchester player on the touchline who gathered the ball and sped over the line to score in the corner. Again the angle and distance got the better of our kicker and the conversion went just wide.

Try three, for me, was the pick of the tries that morning. A great pick up and jinxing run by a Manchester player running drew the Sedgley defence before he fed a beautifully timed ball to a supporting team mate to run unopposed to score between the posts. That try was all down to a wonderful bit of vision from the Manchester player. This time the ball sailed over the bar for a conversion.

As we know Sedgley aren’t a team to give up and they came straight back at us from the restart. For a time they were camped in the Manchester 22. Although there were some big carries they couldn’t find a way through the home side’s tough, determined tackling. Indeed, Manchester won a scrum against the head, deep within their own territory and from that unfancied position near the corner flag, engineered a neat series of passes to the opposite wing and attacked the Sedgley half. A couple of bursts forwards at the visitor’s defence were held up well before finally the ball was bungled over the line from a few yards out. Again the angle proved too acute for the conversion attempt.

The last try of the half was again the result of Manchester keeping the ball through the hands with some quick passing across the pitch for a player to dash through the Sedgley defence and score under the posts to set up an easy conversion.

Stats for this half are as follows: Sedgley Park kicked the ball twice whilst we didn’t. We had no lineouts whilst Sedgley Park had one which they won. We had one scrum, which we won, whilst Sedgley Park were awarded four, winning two of them. Manchester were awarded two penalties whilst Sedgley Park were given three. Stats showed that in this first half the ball got out to the wing six times with five breakdowns, including three knock-ons.

VERDICT: Toga! Toga! Toga! Oh, sorry, Togo? Erm, West Africa, I think.

HALF TIME
Manchester 27 Sedgley Park 0

We were back under way. Again all the play was in the visitors half and it wasn’t long before try number six came, in similar fashion to the others, beginning with a nicely executed series of passes and ending with the ball being grounded under the posts and the conversion made.

At this point the game lost a bit of its pattern, as an injury to a Sedgley Park player meant that both teams went down to 14 men. Determined defensive play by Sedgley kept us from scoring until close to the final whistle when we were treated to a fine solo run to score between the posts after another won scrum against the head. The conversion kick was good and brought to an end a well fought game. Many thanks to Sedgley Park and all the best for the rest of the season.

Stats for the second half are as follows: Sedgley Park kicked the ball twice whilst we didn’t. We had one lineout, which we won, whilst Sedgley Park had four winning two. Both teams were awarded a scrum which they both won. Both teams had a penalty apiece. Stats showed that in this first half the ball got out to the wing five times with four breakdowns.

VERDICT: Save time and money by doing things quicker and spending less.

FULL TIME
Manchester 39 Sedgley Park 0

This was an impressive start to the season. The team didn’t lose its shape and there were lots on 2 on 1s created, running from depth and fixing men. This was especially evident in the first quarter which saw some good patterns of play. Overall there were some fantastic passages of play mainly in the first half. From a bystanders viewpoint would love to see us getting to the ruck quicker. Who’s next?

Best of wishes go out from everyone to Luka who suffered a very painful fractured collar bone during the match, recover quickly fella and see you soon.