V Buckingham Town III
Lost 14 -24
V Kempston II (away)
Lost 10 - 12
This was the type of game that you come away from thinking, 'how the !$%* did we lose that' Ok so we lost Chris Hubbard in the first half, and when they scored the second try, our number 8 was off the field, still no excuse.
Never mind Simmo although you were captain for the day it wasn't all your fault!!
Scorers for MK - Roger Duckworth - Try
Pete Galvin - Try
BOTH FORWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
V Witney III (home)
Lost 5 - 28
It's mine says Pete, as Tiny and Jim come to help!!!! 'come on lads the bar's open' says Pete as he is watched by Tetley and Tiny
And I'll just pass the ball to.........Hey Simmo come back here!!!
Ex-Captain Norman Proud in full effect
V Slough III (away)
Lost 7 - 35
Report Author - Wookie
The Mk III s were set back from the start, arriving at Slough with only 12 men. Things got worse when Slough gave them a player that turned out to be slightly worse than useless in the front row.
MK started out reasonably well, exchanging tries and showing a little more spirit than normal. MK's try coming from skipper Norman Proud.
It was only a matter of time though before Slough took advantage of the overlap, and by half time the game was out of MK's reach.
MK was "strengthened?" in the second half when out of the blazing sun came the pale and pasty figure of Caleb (brother of centre Robin) Cooper who hadn't played in about eight years but "fancied a bit of the action". His first "action" was to drop an up and under while cowering from the Slough pack and he spent the rest of the game hiding on the wing.
The rest of the second half saw some ferocious tackling from Simon "Tetley" Trew, Russ Witton, and Chris "DDT" Hubbard. This , unfortunately, didn't stop Slough from scoring a few more points and despite pressure from MK there were no more scores going there way, and the ref certainly wasn't doing them any favours.
On the plus side, the MK players kept there heads up and played with a great deal of commitment right till the end. Well done lads.
With any luck Simmo will be picked next week so we can all get inspiration form his seeing his wonderful girlie again.
A special thank you must also go to 'Tiny' for actually jumping and catching in the lineout, I know, I was there I was the one that 'lifted' him!
Scorers for MK - Norman Proud - Try
Tetley - Conversion
V Olney III (Home)
Lost 7 - 12
This was one the the hardest games of rugby I have played in this season. Milton Keynes really wanted the win their last home game of the season, and a much more highly rated Olney side wanted to assert their 'top of the local teams' mark on us.
For once Milton Keynes put out a full team including a replacement, it's a shame that both of our reguarly second rows were unavailable, Tiny playing for the second team and Pete Lane watching Bedford lose to London Scottish!!. This is in no way a slagging off for Dave and Glenn who stood in for them, but you know I actually started to miss the Lumbering frame of Tiny in the centre, sorry I meant forwards.
We gave Olney as good as we got for quite a bit of the game, Martin Nixon told us that the game plan was for champagne rugby (Top Deck rugby Martin please!) and so we ran as much ball as we possibly could, leading to excellent breaks for Matt Howles and Chris Hubbard on the Wing. But it was Olney who scored first from gathering up the tap down from a Milton Keynes line out on the one yard line, but the Milton Keynes heads were up and the forwards were maulling, rucking and scrumming their hearts out so we could give the back decent ball.
The second half continued at a pace and Milton Keynes scored a penalty try after an Olney player tripped Tim Hooper while he was taking a tap penalty from three yards out, with the conversion going over this levelled the score and gave us the boost to attack with more Top Deck rugby, with the forwards securing a fair amount of ball for the backs to play with. Oleny however scored next after aquick tap penalty for an offence that I didn't see. After this Russ Witton had an excellent break from the backs and drove over to score, the ref however didn't allow it as he didn't see the ball touch the ground on or after the line, this is because by the time he had got round to the correct side of play the ball and player had moved back a yard or so!!!
Still this was a hard fought defeat for Milton Keynes, but nothing to be ashamed about, Well Played Everyone!!!
Scorer's for MK
Penalty Try
Conversion - Martin Nixon (I think)
V Grove (away)
Lost 7 - 24
This game had that 'feeling' about it at 12:30 when we meet up to travel down to Grove. We were told that the Grove second team had cancelled their game against our second team. This could only mean one thing, that some of their seconds were going to play for the thirds instead. When we got there however it seemed to be worse than that as some of the third team were in fact colts and fast ones at that.
The game itself started of fairly well, with Simmo being captain for the day in Norm's absence, but I guess things always looked dodgy without the likes of Tiny in the second row and Chris Hubbard flying down the wing. Sure enough a crisp passing move from the Grove players saw the winger fly in and scare their first try, which strangley enough seemed to be exactly how their scored their second try as well. The MK forwards did a sterling job creating ball for Simmo to use, and I'm sure with the benifts of time and experience Simmo will one day make good use that ball too! It was however the forwards who stole the ball from a maul in the Grove 22 and drove them back setting up the ball for John Jones to dart over and score.
The second half continued in this vain with there been alot of Milton Keynes possession indeed we were in there half for well over half the game, but Grove made good use of their wingers, kicking to touch whenever their got the ball, and in the process scoring two more tries to finsh of the game. I can't help wondering however what the score would have been had we played the real third team!
Scorers's for MK
Try - John Jones
Conversion - Paul Darton
V Kettering III�s (Away)
Lost 0 - 75
Seeing as Tring very kindly cancel our fixture, we were left at the mercy of the pool fixtures!!! This gave us a fixture against Kettering III�s away. We all assembled at the club and Ross started things going by handing out the ties that will need to be worn on the evening of the annual dinner, I managed to get my grubby paws on a sweet little Mickey Mouse number which I secured around my neck over the T-shirt.
We arrived at Kettering�s ground to find a ladies match already in progress, and our changing rooms baking hot as the heating had not been turned down!!!!!
The match itself as you can probably guess from the score was a bit like watching one way traffic in rush hour! Whatever we tried to do Kettering had an answer to. We tried to run the ball at them - Kettering scored, We changed the kick off - Kettering scored. It was not as if we were playing a bad game just that Kettering were the better team. The only high spot for us was at the start of the second half when we prevented them from scoring for 10 or 15 minutes and occasionally been able to venture into the 22, but to be honest I cannot remember a decent scoring chance for us, but then please remember that I am the tight head prop and usually my head is stuck somewhere it shouldn�t be!!!
It was a shame that this was Norman Proud�s last game as Captain, it would have been nice for him to end on a winning note or even some points on the board might have put a smile on his face, but it wasn�t to be.
Never attempt to play in the front row with a sun burnt neck, trust me it hurts!!!
It�s strange but for the last 6-8 weeks of the season I�ve being praying for the season the end, looking forward to waking up Sunday morning free of pain!!!
However now that the season has being over for a few weeks, the seven�s knock out has being played, the annual dinner has being and gone, and soon the Lions will be back home after a stunning 2-1 test series win over the �boks, what is there for us to look forward to now!!!! Pre-Season Training I hear you cry, get real, this is the third team remember, and training is for the fit and healthy who want to get on and play for the first team (Russ!).
Anyway now is the time to look back and try to remember what exactly happened in those last weeks. After the defeat against Kettering, some of the foolhardy looked forward to playing the Business House Sevens, The main team emerging from the third team is the team led by Ross �Tiny� Mitchell called ............... The game plan for Ross� team was to qualify for the plate final and after winning that, drink the 8 gallons of free beer that is their prize!!!
The annual dinner the following week was notable for many reasons, our new captain failing to turn up been one of them. The food was amazingly very good and this seems to be the general opinion as it took until well into the main course for the first roast potato to fly. Most of the speeches were lost on me on account as I was slowly getting more and more pissed (God the Caffery�s was good that night). However I do remember the list of prize winners.
4th team player of the year Ashley
Special 3rd team award for services rendered Norman Proud
3rd team player of the year Pete Galvin
2nd team player of the year Adrian Triverton
1st team player of the year Bob Balderstone
The Lee Grant Award Gynn Lane
Most Improved Player Mike Shaw
Coaches Award Richard Grout
Clubman of the year Martyn Nixon
Following the presentations much drinking, singing and game playing was done, thanks to Gary Spinks who thought he could join me standing on a chair and knocked both of us flying, and by 2am the first of the �yawning toilet� brigade started to happen (I was one of them!). I finally got home at 6.10am leaving behind 10 or 12 fellow players at the clubhouse, having first consumed a fried breakfast, cooked by our very own Sue and Denise.