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Published: April 8th 2010
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Well, fortunately, the weather gods continue to smile upon us and today was another great Welsh day with the sun shining and not much wind around. Breakfast was early once again - 8 o’clock to fit everything we had to do today. Again, the sick count is starting to climb - having the boys in such close confines is spreading the bugs pretty quickly -and we had a few more looking down this morning. It wasn’t until later in the day that we realised just how bad it is getting - more on that later.
We left the hotel at 9 for the inaugural under 15s paintball challenge - this was really what the tour was about - Dads V boys in the real version of Call of Duty! It was half way back to Cardiff - which only took 35 minutes - and we were soon in the Welsh countryside - open fields, blue skies and some strangely attractive sheep. Almost like New Zealand!
There was a fair bit of banter on the bus regarding the capabilities of the respective teams - not much faith from those boys in their fathers I’d have to say. We arrived
and got ourselves organised into teams - despite our best efforts the boys were not keen to take us on -understandable I feel as we, collectively, are probably quite a formidable force! It ended up being forwards V backs and we joined in with the other groups that were there as well. Signing 25 consent forms took quite a while - hope you all don’t mind that we signed your son’s lives away - but then overalls, helmets, goggles, hoppers and paintballs and we were on our way.
The first game was in “The Graveyard” and was a capture the flag game. It would be fair to say that, in fact, the boys were a bit better than us so as the war of attrition wore on there were a few more dads that boys in the “got-shot-pen”. That was, of course, except for Rambo O’Driscoll who managed to thwart the enemy, sneak, steal, stealth and generally worm his way right to the end of the game. Despite his best efforts, the backs team came through as winners and everyone took a well deserved break.
The nest game was “attack the castle” with the backs defending first against
a very determined forward pack. More dominance appeared in this game - we’re a bit slow at learning - and despite Richard ( who defected and played for backs) working the boys hard, the forwards managed to take the castle and raise the flag. In the return match it was a similar result - the back making it up despite some dubious refereeing calls - and so the game ended in a tie. All good fun and a great way to spend a morning on tour.
From there it was back to the hotel for lunch - chicken breast, pasta and tomato sauce - just what was needed before the big game. Nathan also had his birthday cake - we had at least three renditions of Happy Birthday during the day and not sure whether they got better at all! A bit of chill time for the boys and then we were off to the game.
We lost two players before we even left the hotel - both Sam Wild and Cesar were too down with the flu to contemplate taking them to the game so we drugged them up with some overnight flu tablets and left them to
sleep for the afternoon. Both are gutted that they can’t play but an afternoon’s sleep might actually do them some good.
We found the ground after a couple or wrong turns and soon had the boys warming up in the Welsh sunshine and - unbelievably - still no wind! The opposition looked big as they warmed up and it would be fair to say the boys were apprehensive as we took the field at 4:30 - got the time right this time at least!
Karen - I’m sorry - it’s going to be briefer than you’d like - but the short version is we were convincingly beaten by a better side, 51-nil! The longer version is not much prettier but there were still some high points and some very low points.
From the kick off they were attacking us in a very physical way and our boys were just not prepared for it. After 12 minutes we were down 12-nil and despite some very good play from our attacking back line we struggled to break their defence. We did make some good breaks but failed to capitalise on them and we started to lose players as the
tour started to bite - Callum after 16 minutes, Charlie after 17 minutes, Lewis after 20 minutes - all just run down and finding it hard to play. Despite this we went to the break at 19-nil which showed that the boys still had character and strength and things were not looking too bad!
The second half went from bad to worse and the superior team play of the Swansea side saw us regularly back on our try line waiting for a conversion attempt. There were still high points - our guys never gave up - they still tried to run it out from inside out 22 right to the last minute - looking to play their style of rugby - but at the end on the day we were convincingly beaten by a much better side and the final score was 51- nil
For our boys, this is the first time they’ve been on the receiving end of one of these. They’ve handed a few out but never had to walk away from a game with a score-line like that. We were outmatched by a very good team and, whilst it was a mis-match, the bottom line
is we could have done better. The things we’ve tried to improve in the last few days were still lacking and there was not enough commitment from the team as a whole. We saw some good individual performances but overall it was disappointing and the boys know that. Some deep thinking to be done tonight!
So - character building time is upon us - but that’s part of why we’re here. The boys have come away from that one bruised and with a lot of dented pride and, whilst we’ll do all we can to build them up, it’s time for them to dig deep and reflect on their individual performances. We are supremely confident that they will learn from the experience and we will be running through the whole game with them tomorrow morning - thanks to Chris for the video again.
Anyway - dinner and presentations with the club followed - boys very respectable in their black pants and white polos once again. Back on the bus and back to the hotel just before 8 and a quick top up on the food situation by a quick trip to the local fast food spot. Sam and
Cesar are well asleep and hopefully we’ll see them bouncing back tomorrow.
Sleep-in for the boys and then video review of today before back on the bus and off to Ireland.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support through emails, texts and phone calls. We all love to hear the news from home - hopefully in a couple of day we’ll have better news for you. Keep them rolling in and messages of support for the boys -at what is arguably the low point of the tour so far -will be greatly appreciated.
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