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Vets mini tour to Deal 5th Sept 2015

Vets mini tour to Deal 5th Sept 2015

Myles Woodley28 Sep 2015 - 21:47
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Vets salute the men of Kent

Brief match report on the day/night. We lost 33-34 but as below there were extenuating circumstances.

Some superb logistics by Mike Goodman meant a 10.30 meet at our sponsors, the Waldy with bacon butties and a tour mini bus and all present except Ryan Miller who we collected at J6 of the M25 in full Quins blazer! When I say all present it was 15 incl. Dennis … a few last minute drop outs, disappointingly.

Deal and Betteshanger 1st XV play London S West 3 so a few leagues above but true to their word we played a real Vets team, 15 v 14… Lovely club house, single pitch, slightly overcast with light drizzle but a few spectators including Kevin Hines and family. New shirts were a bit tight for Jim.

We roared into a 3 try lead with our usual powerplay from Ryan, Jim and the rarely seen Tom Newbrook. Backs looked sharp with scribe at 9, PA at fly half. Brando and Mike Goodman Jr at Centre (Elliott) and Matt Stait at wing and Hugh covering the whole back line ! Scrums looked good, lineouts Jim caught it all and all was good. Everytime we reached their 22 we scored. All this with 14, PA was even slotting the odd conversion then midway in the 1st half they got their act together and started disrupting ruck ball and we dropped off a few tackles. They had a man sin binned but had found some momentum. New recruit Dom was appearing to take short pops around rucks and Ryan, Tom and Jim still punching holes. Half time saw a much closer score line and a bottle of port from our hosts. Matt Stait came in a 9 but Hugh by now had injured his bifkin and was hobbling but stayed on.

The 2nd half saw the lead see saw but we never seemed to spend time in their half and dropped off a few tackles and lacked some cover, still not bad with 13, they by now had 14. PA decided to go alone on a huge blindside and scored and Ovey appeared from nowhere to drop on a blocked clearance but we were leaking scores. PA and Brando then decided to discuss the merits of race and colour on our own goal line and the lats 20 was frustrating.

The final score was 33-34 loss but it could have gone either way, scorers were Overd, Adams, Miller, Stait (x2) conversion Hugh (x 1) and PA (x 3). The positives were it was a good blow out and the 3 forwards phases worked but fitness, lack of numbers, cover defence and tackling told in the end.

Post game we enjoyed their hospitality while watching the England / Ireland game dressed in our theme as WW II plots in a homage to the ‘Kentish men’.

The court session was more a post-operation debrief to route out enemy infiltrators where we had Ruan (or Rhine) Mullar, Mickael Guttman and Thomas Neubrukke all guilty and ‘ Jerry' drinks were dispatched. PA and Brando held hands for the 1st half of the England/Ireland game in their own snug bar. Our host Steve was kind enough to wear our new tour mastic, the Quins onesy (XL) all night especially enjoyable as he was a Wasp fan. Less enjoyable was his visible camel toe as the onesy was little small on him.

The oppo then took us on a pub crawl to Deal Town centre and from here on you know the rules. You all should have been there…. thanks tho Matt Ferraby for a sterling skipper job and tour polos and Herr Guttman for ze logistics.

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