By “Nutta”
Hale and well met all you red men and women.
After a generally successful opening 2wks of the season, Saturday 29 April 2023 saw most of the Drummoyne Dirty Reds club rest their studs and have a weekend off after the ANZAC commemoration.
And to that end, in the interests of historical awareness particularly for our non-Australian clubmates who may not yet quite grasp this whole ANZAC caper, I found an article that may give some context, written by some numbat of ill repute I am sure: here
And for some localised ANZAC flavour, more directly related to our own club, I also did discover a reference citing that by late 1915, less than 18mths after the Great War started, our own Glebe/Drummoyne rugby club had some 69 players volunteer to fight, with 27 killed and 29 so seriously wounded as to not play again. Imagine that? Imagine going to training one night to discover 12mths later that four teams of lads gone to fight and three teams of them had been rubbed out. And the madness still had 3yrs to go (until the next time).
Lest we forget.
However life goes on. And 108yrs later the Drummoyne Dirty Reds did welcome an old foe of a different type to home turf on the Saturday just gone – the St Pats club from neighbouring Strathfield. In the context of rugby, we have a long and fierce history with St Pats, one in-which there have been many times where no quarter was asked or given. And today would prove no different with a number of yellow cards being flashed in a hard fought game.
2nd Colts: Lost 17 – 14
It fell to the mighty DD Colts 2nds to shoulder the responsibility for Drummoyne and fly the flag high against the St Pats Colts 2nds in a Radford Cup fixture on the Saturday just gone. And whilst the lads had yet to drink the wine this season, the week on week improvements in performance meant that spirits were high and the inclement weather heralded that this may finally be the day for the drought to break in ways both literal and figurative. Alas, it was not yet to be, for while the lads took their performance up another notch again from the preceding weeks, the win still proved an elusive wee git.
Comments from Supercoach Maybank were that the day started positively with numbers that can only be described as ‘healthy’ showing up with an attitude described as ‘eager’ to take on the St Pats lads under leaden skies. And indeed the Red Men started the match very strongly with some hard earned yards straight up Route 1 through the forwards and with some big solo carries through the backs. However the finishing wasn’t quite there and that meant we ended the half on the wrong side of 14-7 score line after an intercept try from 80m out.
Perhaps the half time lollies were a bit much, or the shock of knowing we had a game there for the taking stunned us a wee bit, as we inexplicably then spent the opening 15mins of the 2nd half asleep. We did dig ourselves a hole there. But through some tough defence, and a bit of luck, we kept our Strathfield neighbours to just 3 points from a penalty which proved their last score of the day.
Then, at 17-7 down and the last 10mins rolling around, we seemed to awake from our wee post-half time nap. The pistons spluttered and started firing and suddenly we were carrying hard, knocking over black jerseys and taking the yards. The momentum had swung and eventually we were rewarded with a try. But unfortunately there simply wasn’t enough time left on the clock for the DD’s to collect another, win the game and drink the wine that really we should have drunk.
There were plenty of positives to take into training during the upcoming week, not in the least the two most simple ones; that we now know we have the tools to be successful and that we did put ourselves into a place where we had a match there for the taking. So whilst that fish did get away, the message to the Colties is to keep plugging. For when you harness your tools and apply yourselves for a full match, your victory will come. And it will be all the sweeter for your work and efforts when it does (so learn the song).
B&F points went 3 for Spencer, 2 for Charlie and 1 for Loms.
The coming week is serious stuff for the club as on Saturday 6th May we host both Ladies Day and our northerly neighbours Hunters Hill at Drummoyne Oval. Apparently a lot of folks don’t get along with their neighbours. And the Hunters/Drummoyne relationship is no different. So there is work to be done. And that means get your shoulders straight, your focus sharp and your hip flasks filled, because especially this week, Saturday is rugby day.
Nutta.
#dirtyreds #deeperthanblood
#dirtyreds #deeperthanblood
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