Looking round the changing room, the song that sprang to mind was Chris Andrew’s song ‘I’m a yesterday man’.

Yoit and Ronnie had obviously gone overboard with experience as the team was made up of three guys with hip replacements and two with knee replacements. Fortunately, the team’s matron was on hand to kindly assist one or two to help put on their socks. With a couple privately announcing prostrate problems, the matron insisted that our team could not play for more than 12 minutes each way, although with hindsight, a rainbow would have been a worthwhile distraction.

Finally with the team changed, under the supervision of current club coach Carl Phillips, the team assembled behind the posts for a warm up session which with many breathing heavily, was abandoned and cut short after only three minutes.

The tournament consisted of Wigton, Workington and Netherhall. With us having only ten players we borrowed two players for our two matches.

In the two games no quarter was given and when we got without touching distance, the rucks were very competitive. Unfortunately we lost our fittest and quickest back Carl Phillips who had to leave at half time in the first game for a previous engagement. Lacking a little pace whenever our line was breached it was inevitably a try would result and unfortunately it was breached many times during the day. Cammy did his upmost to prevent one particular attack tackling three players in the same movement and was unlucky not to prevent the try. Discussions on such incidents after the game were enlightening to many of the team as they had been too far away to see.  

Joe Tunstall was the oldest at 65+ and he belied at best two or three of those years.

Paul Wilson fit with all his road running could only run in straight lines – for the next tournament we will consider putting lead in his pockets which he can offload from the appropriate pocket to allow turning. After years of running he’s also developed a habit of looking over his shoulder to see who’s about to pass him. Simmo, our underage ringer or so we thought didn’t look out of place and it was therefore a surprise to no one that his age was never questioned. John Carter and Ian Gray were still very full of alcohol from the previous night and it could be Tuesday or Wednesday before they realise they played.

As you would expect on a pitch the size of the Ellis, stamina quickly became an issue and to take our minds off the score, the small group of us on the touchline counted the number of feet the players had travelled from the centre circle between opposition tries as it was easier to keep count.

Paul Dixon, David Nicholson and Jackson Eve obviously still capable of playing league rugby looked out of place and even had enough stamina to guest for Wigton and Workington in the final game of the day.

With the majority of the team picking up an injury the organisers have got the spacing about right as the next tournament is not to the end of January. With hamstrings and metatarsals being a fairly recent diagnosis, many were suffering these for the first time in their careers.

The tournament is a truly excellent idea that could grow with a little all-round effort and would be great to bridge the gap between league rugby and finally hanging up the boots – really looking forward to the next one at Carlisle on 28^th January. With a little more effort and organisation, we could field a very good squad.