Drybrook Rugby Club

Drybrook RFC’s 6th Annual tournament was met with sunny skies as the teams of seasoned athletes took to the field to do battle. 9 senior teams and 4 junior sides took to the manning’s ground and there was some fantastic skill on display in an extremely high paced tournament.

The pool stages went smoothly and were highly competitive.

The two veterans’ sides displayed some early promise but looked to still be suffering from the jetlag of their recent Malta tour through the latter stages and neither side managed to progress from the pool stage.

There was a big female representation with a ladies team and a girl’s side entering the competition, however even pulling in local England Legend, Ceri Large as a ringer was not enough to compete with the standard of rugby on display and both sides also bowed out in the pool stages.

The colts were the other side to be heading for an early shower after being robbed of a few players there was a valiant effort from the remaining player but could not progress.

Pool B saw a TNC electrical side, progress from Pool B along with 50 shades of Ginger. While

pool A saw “Win or lose, on the booze” progress captained by Jack Davis progress along with “The Bourne Supremacy” progress and this meant for a promising line up of semi-finals:

“The Bourne Supremacy” lined up against the TNC electrical team and at the end of the 11 minute spell came out in front with a narrow victory. Pitch one saw the other half of the draw, where seemingly the booze finally got the better of “win or lose on the booze” as they bowed out to the confident looking “50 shades of Ginger”.

The Final started as the spectacle it promised to be with two early tries, but from there on in became a bit of a stale mate. One try a piece at the end of the 15 minute match, extra time ensued, after a further 20 minutes at deadlock, and the “50 shades of ginger” beginning to get concerned over their exposure to the sun, the player reduction rule came into place, every two minutes each team would lose a player from the field. This ensued for a further 10 minutes until after losing 5 players each from the field of play (2 players from each team on the pitch) the dead lock was finally broken, Luke Fisher the newly appointed Drybrook forwards coach was able to find some space and inflict the killer blow for the 50 shades of ginger side.

The presentation quickly followed, where last year’s winning team captain Dean Jelf presented the winning side with their medals and the cup. Rapturous applause and celebration followed and champagne was cracked open as celebrations moved to the bar.

Fun carried on late into the evening with “The Ray guns” putting on a great performance on the patio. This was a chance for most of the veteran players to free up their joints again in a cool down in the form of Dance; I believe that Dave “Dibsy” Thomas only stopped dancing at 9:30 this morning.

Special thanks to the following people who formed the works party that met on a number of occasions to arrange the day; Tori Treherne, Andy Milner, Carmen Edwards, Jenna Large, Tom Treherne, Marie Watkins, Lucie Smith, Anthony Suter
Thanks also to the following for their help on the day; Karen& Phil Large, Angie Moore,

And finally a big thank you to our referees; Bob McCrudden, Joe Pointon, Luke Fisher & Andy Milner.

We all look forward to next year’s tournament.

View tournament  pictures (Facebook)