South Delta Rugby

Ireland Tour photo’s are courtesy of Rod Lotzkar. To see Rod’s photos, go to:  http://www.pbase.com/sdssrugby/inbox&view=treeWednesday March 26, 2008

The 1st XV were scheduled to play their U16 a team that is superior to their U18s. However, they had about 27 players and wanted to get them all in to prepare for the Galway cup final that they will be playing in two weeks down the road. So they set up three 30 minute periods. About 28 of our lads dressed and participated in the match.

Now this was definitely one of our thrillers. The Irish have several strengths constant with all teams we played. Skilled and very fast backs (all of whom can kick extremely well) who to the man take the ball at pace. They always focus on stripping the ball and cheat like hell with hands in the ruck.

All of these things proved to be our undoing in the 1st period. They racked up some 20 points to our 5. They had a #11 with blinding speed who managed to score two of the tries. Despite pleading by the SD coaches to keep the ball in close and play A ball, we continued to try the outside and just kept spilling or losing the ball and giving them room to attack. Finally about half way thru the 2nd period, when the score was 27 to 10 for the hosts, our lads realized that our strength was to simply keep the ball tight and run at them and just maintain possession. We did this magnificently and only occasionally threw the ball out to the backs. Because their backs began to get cold, we were able to make great ground outside and then bring it in for more crash ball.

It worked. Final score 31 to 27 for the guests from Canada.

Now this village was without a doubt the nicest group of people we met on tour. After the match we all had food, did the presentations and then they had a disco for the boys. Waiting in the disco there appeared to be dozens of lovely Irish girls all anxious to meet the Canadians.

Sadly, only 15 of our 39 were being billeted so at midnight because the coaches were tired, 24 boys were forced to extricate themselves from the arms of wonderfully friendly Irish girls and pour onto the bus for the trip into Galway and our hotel.

The following day, we drove the boys out to Monivea and used their pitch for a pre game practice. Our last match was to be for our 2nd XV versus Galwigians. As it turned out the Galwigians produced a stacked team complete with a number of U18s. The game turned out to be lopsided – final score 50 to 0.

However, the score does in no way reflect the determination and commitment of our 2nds. They played with huge pride and knocked several times on the doorstep of the Galway boys. They did us proud and came of the field very satisfied and most importantly ….PROUD.

Galwigians strangely showed us no hospitality what so ever, so we just got on the bus and went back to the hotel. Many of our Monivea hosts traveled to the match and their explanation for the lack of hospitality was expressed with the words: “CITY FOLKS”.

They do not like the city folks.

Now the boys that got billeted had a fantastic time and the parents could not do enough, including washing their clothes, feeding them well. We must understand that while this is a farming village, the Irish are no longer poor subsistence farmers and our boys had the luxury of their own bedrooms complete with en suite in palatial homes. Good on them.

Now one important factor is Mr. Alan Dagg. He as you might recall is the X-Pat Irishman, 4 years in Canada, who joined us as translator and tour guide. He actually lived for some time in Galway. Well, his best friend who lives in Dublin, made the drive up to see Alan and us before we left. It seems that he and Mr. Dagg elected to visit every pub in Galway before Alan had to leave his homeland. Now while this would have been an impossible task for any normal human being, Mr. Dagg came very close to completing this task and we are all looking forward to abusing him on the upcoming 6 hour bus ride to Belfast one hour from now.

The Irish are an interesting lot and I am now convinced that the saying that, “God invented Guiness so that the Irish would not rule the earth” is actually quite true.

On to Belfast for our last night together. Apparently Delta Secondary has been threatening to impose big hurts on our boys next Thursday and I know the lads are looking forward to practicing all that they have learned on this trip.

Final tally: 1st XV: 3 wins – 2 losses
2nd XV: 0 wins – 3 losses ( a little deceptive because we played most of our boys in 2 of the 5 games slotted for the 1stXV)

This has been an amazing experience for not just the boys but the coaches as well. We have all truly come together and our theme for the tour: PRIDE AND FRIENDSHIP has come to pass.