This week Roseland welcomed Perranporth for their first home game of the season. The sun was shining, there wasn’t a breath of wind and the pitch was looking pristine.
The game got underway with Perranporth playing down the gentle slope. Roseland were immediately put under pressure and Perranporth scored in the left corner within 5 minutes after a lovely flowing move. It looked like it was going to be a long afternoon for the Roseland boys and fun fun fun for the beach boys.
Roseland were pinned back in their own half for most of the first half. Doug “the head” Moore on his first start for Roseland was a menace, making tackle after tackle and Alex “favourite son” Benbow was at it again. The one man wrecking ball was making huge hits all afternoon like Miley Cyrus or a young Will May
When Roseland did have the ball they looked lackadaisical and rather than playing good simple rugby, often tried to overcomplicate things with offloads in the tackle. A chip and chase from Joe Hutchings drew groans from the crowd and even the usually calm and collected coach Andy Day was said to be fuming.
Roseland did eventually get their act together and were unlucky not to score before half time but a combination of great defensive work by Perran and panicking by Roseland meant that at the break the scores stayed Roseland 0-5 Perranporth
Luckily for the Roseland faithful this was one of those cliché games of two halves. Changes were needed at the break and the return of Andrew “daddy” Stark was a key one. New found fatherhood and the off season hadn’t been kind to Starky’s waistline but he wasted no time in throwing his weight around. Running from deep and hitting some great lines he drove Roseland forward.
Burt Jacobs came on for his first game this season and made an immediate impact, chasing down a Joe Chitchings penalty kick that didn’t quite make touch and tackling the Perran fullback. Isolated, the Perran player didn’t release the ball and a penalty try was rightly awarded. Full credit to the rather handsome referee Trevor Stribley for keeping up with play at the age of 83. Like a fine wine, he just gets better with age!
The second Roseland try followed quickly. Some brilliant running and quick ball meant Roseland went the length of the pitch before Burt Jacobs juggled the ball and dived over the line in the bottom corner.
The next try came from a Perranporth scrum on their own 5 metre line. The Roseland scrum forced back the beach boys and Starky dived on the ball to claim the try. Good vibrations!
The final try was another monsterous scrum from the big guns who walked the ball a good 20m before 5th choice captain Nathan Chapman scored. Why he couldn’t have done that last week instead of knocking the ball on God only knows!
Christian “least favourite son” Benbow who was still recovering from a broken nail on the sidelines, made the local papers as a hero when he saved a small child from being decapitated by the ball as it was kicked out of play, without spilling a drop of his pint.
Andy Harris who is also still injured (god our backs are soft) was again chief water boy. After lending his boots to Eamers two weeks ago he then had to lend them to Dickie this week after his boots disintegrated within 20 minutes. I think it’s time our older players bought their own boots now! Andy, now sporting some flip flops and cracking tan lines ran on the medical kit and dropped the whole lot on the floor, spilling contents everywhere much to the supporters amusement.
The beach boys from Perranporth rallied again near the end and were unlucky not to score. Both sloop John B and little saint Nick went close but we’re held out by some great defensive work from the Roseland boys.
A tired Jolene Hitchings then slotted a delicious penalty. Final score Roseland 27-5 Perranporth