The One Where Rowan Left Roadkill On The Pitch

Stockport 3's were back at Headlands Road and in league action against local rivals Manchester 3's hoping to get back to winning ways after the previous week's hard fought draw. The usual unavailability's led to a first appearance of the season for 2nd row Andy 'Egg' English, scrum half James Singleton and wing Olly Wakefield with captain Jim Finnigan back at hooker and vice captain Daniel Cockersmith joining No.8 Rowan Birch in the back row.

Dec 'Grizzly' Mallon had come down after his horrific injury to show off his knee brace and crutches which was a good job really as fly half Brad Pearson went down like he had been shot by a sniper in the warm up leading him to be carried off and his game over before it had begun. He was able to waddle using one of Grizzly's crutches and this led to a pre-match reshuffle seeing a first appearance of the season for replacement 10 Rhys Warhurst (a diagnosed partial tear of his MCL leading to a lengthy spell on the sidelines)

With Manchester only able to field 12 players, it was left to Dom Waterhouse and Mark Shiels to volunteer to play for the opposition and they were soon joined by Jack Lord after the opposition lost their ancient hooker to injury. Stockport were the first on the scoreboard with a well constructed try with Warhurst hitting post with his first conversion attempt however he was going to have plenty of practice during the game. Unable to say who scored and in what order (and apologies if I forget you) however I do know that it was Manchester who scored next with a penalty goal but Stockport came back with a converted try to take the lead out to 12-3. There were various further scores throughout the game from various people including but not limited to prop Jack Booth, full back Aaron Hussain and coach (and wives) fave Duncan Hedar which along with the boot of Warhurst gave Stockport 31 points by half time whilst limiting Manchester to 10 after they converted a try after a bobbling ball behind the goal line deceived the home side and was dotted down by the opposition however they also finished with 14 men having seen Singleton sent to the sin bin for a dubious high tackle which was more of a team repeated infringement penalty?

Some half time words from coach Birch who almost looked slightly happy and was reassured that he could see that the team were trying to play to the structure he was implementing. Subs saw Keith Warhurst introduced for Singleton so the team could have a (loosely termed) scrum half whilst Dan Duggan was on and into the back row.

Its fair to say the 2nd half was one-way traffic and this was mainly due to the dynamic due of Duggan and Birch. Every kick seemed to land in the hands of Duggan who just decided to run straight back and by straight I mean straight, as in a straight "I'm not deviating, you'll need to stop me" straight line. Not to be outdone, the moustachioed Birch (who is clearly the better rugby player in the Birch household) decided he was going to run straight as well. The Manchester 10 decided he was having none of that and set himself up for a tackle which it turned out was a bit of a schoolboy error as Birch ran straight at him, straight into him, straight through him and straight over him. The noise of the impact reverberated around the ground and you wondered if there was going to be a hole in the pitch where the player was buried?? Unsurprisingly both Duggan and Birch registered 2nd half tries!!! A 2nd half 3-position cameo from the elder Warhurst saw him play scrum half, wing and outside centre at which point tackles HAD to be made, especially when the opposition centre (who was yet to start shaving) shouted to his fly half "run at the old baldy and give it me"!!! He didn't have much luck running at the old baldy!!!!

Now all was going swimmingly at this point, no threats to the Stockport try line and all was well. Regular readers may remember the tale the previous week of the attacking kick by the defensive player that is full back Aaron Hussain. So this week he decided to try something different as the ball was kicked towards him, being chased by the opposition and it became clear that Hussain was going to make the bounce of the ball but only just. There was no option to catch the ball or smother it so it also became very clear from the look on his face that it was the opportunity for this week's howler, the fly hack. Now with all the opposition running towards you, kicking the ball back very quickly for yourself to chase is always a great option. That being said a couple of things needs to take place in that you actually need make a decent contact with the ball and it generally needs to travel towards the opposition rather than vertically and into the hands of the opposition. Fortunately their catching was a dodgy as Hussain's kicking and the game then petered out. The game was now won on the scoreboard and over as a contest however to their credit Manchester continued to fight but having lost yet another player they decided enough was enough and the referee called time on the game resulting in a 51-10 win for the mighty 3's.

Massive mentions as always for various people including Elliot Galloway who had a great game and was everywhere as a link man, as well as Messrs Waterhouse, Shiels and Lord who all volunteered to play for the opposition ensuring the game went ahead.

MOTM went to Dom Waterhouse for volunteering to play the whole game for Manchester despite being injured whilst unsurprisingly DOTD went to Hussain for another glorious kicking option.

Next week sees a league and cup double header with the 3rd XV travelling away to Hope Valley.