Slough7s team July 2011 before the nakedness!

Slough 7s a day in the sunshine, a night of nakedness!

On a very hot July day, Pinner RFC attended for the second year in succession the invitation only Slough 7s at Slough RFC. The week had been a little stressful for Captain Aaron Nicholas trying to get a solid team out for the tournament, after players pulling out or not available he managed to gather a fine assortment of men including Mark Razzle!

It was to be a long hard day with many pool games with some strong opposition, however, owing to the tightness of this reporter, who blagged his way in claiming he was a player and therefore not paying the admission did not purchase a program so can not fully account for all the teams played against and as Aaron held the only playing sheet available was not privee to what was going on (as were most of the team)

Lounging around the newly formed Pinner camp (camp being the operative word here) the team relaxed before the start of the tournament, they were ready and given some motivational team talk by Woady via his portable tent Hoover were about as prepared as they could be.

It was at this point that it was noticed that someone had neglected to bring water bottles, so cold San Miguel and Fosters had to make an appearance, luckily 1^st team bitch had brought a spare set in case, but to be honest, the former drinks were the preferred ones!

The first match game on pitch 3 saw Pinner up against a very well organised 7s team and within the first few minutes were already down points, well double figures, however, the spirit of the team and the fact that a rolling subs policy was in place allowed for changes; 30seconds on, three minutes off! It wasn’t until the second half that Pinner started to play and as a result scored a well worked try, memory recalls by John Kirby. The final score was a loss 45-5

Back to the happy camp, more San Miguel, sun cream and some friendly banter involving a short girl and a long nose and certain players who shall remain nameless!

The second game, I think on pitch 2 proved to be a more skilful game from the Pinner lads, who got their act together and came out clear winners, the beat was upbeat, smiles all around and the try celebration of the ‘Big O’ by Samuel Markham (Umfufu) put the previous game deep in the memory of the team.

Game three: pitch 1 the centre stage! With a very annoying pitch commentary by someone who thinks they are funny who claimed Pinner had scored against the run of play and by luck had scored a try had to eat his words and almost champagne rugby was witnessed by the crowd; tries from all parts of the pitch and by different players who graciously passed the ball to each other to score a number of tries. Magical moments were witnessed when Woady jumped like a fairy to hook the ball back to Aaron who then passed back to woady to score (I’m sure that this wasn’t the game plan!), leaving Pinner winners by a score of 35 – 15 (it could have been more but you get the general idea) we didn’t however make full use of the conversions, I wont name players here but putting it wide by 10feet from under the post, hitting the post, the bar and putting wide the other side accounted for most of the missed points. This victory put Pinner into the Semi-finals.

Back to the happy camp – more refreshments and another play with the tent hoover!

The semi-final took an age to come round, over an hour and half had to spent ‘relaxing’ until the game went ahead. But, moments before the players started to warm up/try and move their stiff legs, a hero approached over the horizon; yes it was Bernie, fresh from work and given the mantle of the one who was to have the ball the whole game and let the others support him, mainly vocally as running and tackling seemed way down on the list!

The Semi-final saw Pinner play a very organised 7s team who played in white with a big O on their shirt (at some time this report may be amended and the correct teams inserted). However, after going a few tries down, Pinner got their heads together and started to play the game that they are very capable of playing and as a result scored tries to make the final score not as bad as they were expecting, in fact very respectable (again hopefully some one will give me the result/teams at some point to make this report more directed to rugby rather than a day out!)

With players having alternative engagements many had to up and leave, but some remained in their £20 cheapo tents and a heskie full of cold beer. Reports say that the evening went on to be little quiet affair!!! Naked rugby at 3am……………….

Newsflash newsflash newsflash

Teams that we played were: Otters (L), Guildford (W), East India Club (W 36-33) East Berkshire Rugby (L semi-final)

New update: it should read like this otters (L) guildford (W) east india club (W) east berkshire (W) and lost in the semi final to stoneyhurst.. its all coming back

Thanks to all those who gave up their time to support and

to the team themselves:

Captain Aaron, Woady, Laney, Adrien, Simon, Jon K, Umfufu, Ollie, Sat Nav, M Razzle,  Bernie and Lyndsey