This week Roseland travelled down to the dark depths of Redruth to face Albany in their third league game of the season. Rumours of Albany struggling for players were unfortunately true but history has shown us that anything can happen in Rugby and no game can be taken for granted. Albany lined up with 14 Spartans against the mighty Roseland empire. Rhys Daniels disguised as a wooden horse but less mobile was given to Albany as a gift to even the teams up.
The game started well for Roseland who scored within 2 minutes through a storming Nathan Chapman run. Even so, the Roseland boys looked sloppy and it was understandably hard for them to get up for the game. They seemed more intent on hurting Rhys at every opportunity rather than scoring. A point proven by Josh Little when rather than passing the ball with a two man overlap outside him he decided to step back in and aim straight for Rhys. This seemed to awaken the Trojan horse and when he next recieved the ball he ran 40 yards beating Roseland defenders left right and centre. Albany, inspired by their wooden leader then scored under the posts and confidently drop kicked the conversion to level up the scores.
Roseland needed to buck their ideas up and thankfully they did. Dan HBH Wilkins was happy to be helpful and made his first Roseland tackle, Ant Thomas was spotted doing something, Welsh weapon Toby had a delightful out the back offload and slow motion replays showed Jellybean sending an Albany defender for a hot dog. The confidence rose and the tries started to come.
Ben Humphries dived over in the corner for the second try after the ball was passed nicely through the hands. Joe Kitchens then ran 50 yards, dummied two defenders, ran out of puff and fell over the line for the third. Andrew “Greedy” Stark scored the fourth and fifth, beating numerous defenders when a simple pass outside would have been the easier option. Tommy Whiles got the sixth but struggled to bend and put the ball down over his belly.
More chances were squandered in the first half due to poor handling in the greasy conditions and some great tackling from the Albany players. Tommy had another disallowed and Dan borked bad when his first ever Roseland try was disallowed for a forward pass. Torquil “Dickie” Tonks dazzled the Albany players with his fancy footwork and even fancier name but wasted another golden opportunity by choosing not to use a three man overlap. Luckily these mistakes weren’t punished and Ben Humphries (filling in for Sam Glanville at fullback who had fallen out with the captain and gone to Butlins with Veryan FC) scored his second of the afternoon and Roseland’s seventh. HT score Redruth Albany 7-45 Roseland
Roseland picked up where they left off in the first half and quickly scored again. Ben Humphries completing his hattrick. Josh Little then galloped in to score under the posts for the ninth try.
Despite the score Albany continued to cause problems for Roseland. They looked weak under the high ball. Ant Thomas’s little T Rex arms not long enough to catch the ball in front of his belly and double agent Stark (he played for Albany but was deemed surplus to requirement) not knowing which side he was playing for, knocking on twice off of the kick off and another as soon as he switched shirts.
The highlight of the match had to be when Jellybean made a clean break though the Albany defence down the right wing, realised he was on the half way line and couldn’t run that far so dropped the ball. The crowd erupted with laughter! Soon after, Jelly switched to play for Albany and caused nothing but problems for Roseland. He left a huge hole in defence that couldn’t be filled and then flattened Ant and Bevan. However, Albany should have scored again but Jelly wasted their best opportunity by passing the ball straight into touch. Well done Jelly!
Roseland continued to rack up the points and Will Rundle scored after a long Alex Benbow run. Not to be outdone, Joe Kittens converted with a drop goal. Matt Willsher then finished off a lovely move under the posts before scoring again by running through two defenders rather than round them for the eleventh and twelfth tries.
Rowen Rawlings (not real name, don’t tell his mrs) then made his debut for the season but I think he thought he was still playing in the 80s. Andrew Stark continued to have no idea which side he was playing for and pulled his team mate Bevan out of a ruck. Joe Stitchings picked up his weekly injury. Rhys scored one last try and converted it with a drop goal himself. Andy Harris wearing full kit with no intention of playing continued to scribble notes as fast as he could, Will May turned up in fancy dress and the ref blew the whistle, having seen enough madness for one day. Final score Redruth Albany 7-85 Roseland