The One With The Chatty Captains

Having been crowned NOWIRUL Div 4 East league champions the previous week with 3 games to spare, Stockport now took their unbeaten league record to the home of the Emus, Aspull RUFC to take on their 3rd XV. With injuries now taking their toll, the 3's travelled with a squad of 17 however welcomed back Rhys Warhurst after 2 months out with injury and prodigal son Jason Holmwood who decided Preston was slightly too far away but Wigan was ok. The team also saw senior Colt Jack Purvis onto the wing for his 2nd appearance of the season after his hat trick scoring debut last time out. With skipper Jim Finnigan also struggling with injury, the captaincy again fell to scrum half Keith Warhurst who pre-game had asked the team for a quick start and to put down an early marker of intent. I say early however this doesn't apply to the calamitous Rushton boys who are never on time and with dad Graham also managing to rush off home post-match leaving his kit behind!!!!

The game began with an impeccably observed minute's silence and was then played on a pitch that looked like it could have played host to the Battle of Passchendaele (or Pass-chendaele but more on that later) with there being a back story played out as both wing Duncan Hedar and centre Aaron Hussain were aware they were both in the running for top try scorer of the season. Stockport had a lightweight and mobile pack (aside from props Tom Rushton and Jez Taylor) so the order of the day was to move the ball around and this quickly led to the first try of the game for Hedar however the wind was again playing havoc with the kicking which saw fly half Rick Morgan narrowly unsuccessful from the touchline. It wasn't long before the same trick was repeated and the same player was in at the corner for his 2nd which unfortunately for us (but maybe fortunately for Hedar) saw Hussain leave the field with injury, being replaced by Rhys Warhurst on the wing which saw Hedar into his preferred centre position. Strong back row carrying from the restart from flankers Dan Duggan and Nathan Jackson made in-roads all half whilst the defence was superb and it was from such pressure that the ball was spilled by Aspull and scooped up by No.8 Ben Unwin who outplaced all the defence and scorched pretty much the length of the pitch to crash over in the corner for the team's 3rd score giving the visitors a 15-0 lead. Next on the scoresheet was the veteran lock Graham Rushton who forced his way over next to the posts leaving a simple conversion for Morgan however after this rapid start, the game descended into seemingly moving from scrum to scrum which appeared to be the masterplan by the Aspull captain and prop, in an attempt to slow us and the scoring rate down. The downside to this was that he could talk for England and this wasn't great when every scrum for Aspull saw him stood next to Stockport skipper Warhurst, he himself not shy why it comes to exchanging verbals and so basically the game became an ongoing conversation between him, Warhurst and the ref!!! After this mid-half slump Stockport were forced into another early change seeing back row Ollie Wagstaff make his first 3rd XV debut of the season replacing the injured Duggan, however the team roared back to life and after defensive pressure close to the Aspull line saw the ball squirt out, lock Henry Carolan was the first to react and ground the ball taking the teams into the half time interval at 0-27 to Stockport.

The half time talk centred around sticking to the basics and not getting carried away as well as hoping that Mr Morgan the history teacher could shake himself out of his own version of Pass-chendaele as his passing compass was way off and he kept blowing opportunities with his wayward accuracy, either that or he was trying to protect the injury carrying Holmwood by attempting to miss him out but we'll never know???

The second half became a celebration of rugby with Tom Rushton acting like the playground bully, taking the ball off Aspull players when he wanted to and not to be outdone, dad Graham rolling back the years with some excellent lines of running and handling. They were joined in this action by Jackson who was everywhere (except over the try line) and hooker Conal Dooley who despite the winds threw some great arrows in the line out whilst prop Jez Taylor had seemingly gone deaf as he was the other party having to suffer the constant chatter at the scrum!!! Stockport were soon on the board again and it was that man Hedar registering yet another hat trick despite having the overlap (there was no way he was passing) which was converted by Morgan and not to be outdone, fellow wing Purvis then got himself on the scoresheet which was also converted by Morgan who at least seemed to have located his kicking compass. With the score line now at 0-41, Stockport still continued to go through their sets and phases which had laid the platform all game, with pressure at the set piece seeing the ball pop out of an Aspull scrum which was picked up by Warhurst and quick hands saw Purvis in for his second (despite being decapitated in the act of scoring) to push the score out to 0-46. The game was now totally free flowing and soon the ball was in the hands of Hedar again who, clearly happy with his 3 tries for the day put Rhys Warhurst in for a try converted by Morgan and the final act of a reduced half saw Purvis in again for his hat trick (his 2nd in 2 appearances) which was duly improved on by Morgan to take the final score to 0-60 in favour of Stockport.

As is always the case, there is MOTM and DOTD to be awarded which was decided upon by DoR Finnigan, looking resplendent in his Stockport stash whilst Jason Holmwood sat there looking like a bag of shit cos Kirky hadn't drop kicked him through the Stockport kit room in an attempted to keep him (its called grooming)!!!! Its fair to say Holmwood is no Gaz Thomas (in Kirky's eyes)!!! :)

MOTM quite rightly went to the old war horse Graham Rushton who never turns up on time and looks f&&ked before the game even starts however he was literally everywhere yesterday, calling the line outs, tackling and carrying hard whilst showing some deft handling touches and scoring a try to boot.

DOTD could only go to one man, Mr History who came up with the Battle of Passchendale line about the pitch but little did he know his own version of being unable to Pass-chendale would be his downfall.