The battle was already almost half won when a record breaking 12 players turned up, a flattering number indeed.
The mood in the Shadows' camp was all positive and gay as the lads bantered jokes while gearing up and "marked territories" all over Turf City side roads.
A wonderful start indeed.
Damien's boisterous presence at the sideline was definitely missed but as the game progressed the team found a surrogate in Loo. (more on this later)
Do you know....
Touch Referee, as you all must know, is a sensitive being, they are not used to criticism and quite emotionally unstable.
Therefore, in any circumstances or any time throughout the game, they shall not be judged nor be criticized upon. Such is the law of the game....
Otherwise, you may be asked to take a few minutes off the field for reflection (aka Sin Bin)
Anyway, back to the game.... or a bit of pre-game preview first...
6-pack, the 2006 National Touch League champions & 2007 finalist, has a lot of burden in maintaining their elite status in the Touch community
Kongsberg Shadows on the other hand is a newly formed team made up of Rugby enthusiasts who simply love playing the game and enjoy each other's company
There was supposed to be a huge handicap given the background of the team
Nevertheless, right from the get go, Shadows took the game literally to 6-pack's throat and made a few opportunities which were not capitalized
Experience played a huge part indeed as 6-pack soon settled down and flashed a blinding light over the Shadows for the 1st try.
Frustrations soon set in and the guys began a verbal assault on the referee. Not a wise choice ... (as they have got the whistle & see rule above)
Wise cautioning by our experience Coach, Grant "Axe" Rawlinson soon put things in perspectives
Realizing that we could not win the game by shouting at the Refs, the lads pulled a collective effort to create the 1st beautiful try....started by D.Teo's nice clean dump and hands down the line through Loo, Su & finished off by Mephine
The rest of the 1st half was pretty much a see-saw battle......thus ended with a 2-2 scoreline
The 2nd half was more organized after a pep talk by Axe.....
Mephine, Jonty & Rob were critical and precise in his dumping allowing the platform for quick attacks & recycle
Suhaimi, Alex & Andre were work-horses in defence, a critical aspect in the match or any match for that matter
Derelyn was a commander in communication
Loo was sashaying in his new haircut
Kenny & David kept things real and lifted the team up by sticking to basic Touch Rugby game play
and Bryan, though he was quite lost throughout the game, tried hard and had quite a number of breaks for the Tryline. He also gave the team some light moments when he voluntary rolled the ball. Realizing only moments later that the drills we did earlier require us to actually touch the opponent, embarrassingly yelled "Aiyar, play on lah"
Alas, the pep talk during the half-time break felled on deaf ears as we turned our verbal assault on our own teammates with every inexperience mistakes we made.
The Shadows could not recover in time and their confidence was slowly chipped away by their own heavy criticisms
The game ended 5-3 to 6-pack
Try Scorers: Mephine, David Teo & Kenny
Shadow of the Day: David Teo, for scoring the 2nd try and creating the 3rd try
Dick of the Day: It was a contention between Andre (for getting burned) & Bryan, for the voluntary roll ball then "Aiyar, plan on lah!" remarks. Bryan won the Dick of the Day hands down
As we do not have any photos nor vids for this game (coming soon for the next), I have attached a photo of our own week 2 Shadow of the Day during his Touch Rugby heyday
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