Blast from the Past

July 2010

Blast from the past:

I am having trouble with Freddy's picture from a phone so I am adding this.

Last Wednesday we got 135 hits on our blog when we usually only get less than 5 a day. Scary

Chatham Away

Grimsby Gentlemen: 5:  Kent  Havoc 48

Venue:  Victoria Park in Chatham: It was Kent's family day and this was not a pool as hoped but a bouncy place.

Referee: Mark Glendan (again)

Even the ref needed physio help.  . 

Weather:  At 1:30 it was a warmish 33 degrees Celsius and by 3:00 it was 34.4 degrees with 99% humidity. A nice game to remember as being over.

A beard is nice to have (in the winter)

Attendance: Me (with my new camera) and Sam's dad..

Team:  1. Ross Matheson, 2. Brandan Sculland, 3. Jon Millington, 4. Dirk Reichow 5. Bob Mavro, 6. Duncan Earl, 7.  James Vinneau  8. Drew Redmond, 9. Nick Lemieux, 10. Jake D'Achille, 11. Sam McGee (back from a shoulder operation) , 12. Vic Blaney  13.  Heri Lewssoh, 14. Austin Marck, 15. Jamie Farrell, 16 & 17 Brendan and Zach (two players lent to us by Kent as needed subs. 

Brendan and Zach: first games with Grimsby

Sam's back (actually front)

Game: 
After a slow warm up due to the weather the game got going but it was a slog for both sides.  Dent scored at about 7 minutes and again at 14 but we did give some push back and after some good attacks on the Kent line, Jake made a break and was held up near the goal but managed to offload to Brendan for our only score of the game.  

Half time Grimsby Gentlemen 5: Kent Havoc 28. 

Second half was more keeping going that really being able to challenge.  A few came off with heat problems and injuries (and came back on again).  

Jake eluding a couple of Havocs

Brendan on his way to scoring. 

Duncan on a rumble.

Then its Heri's turn. 

Austin tries to find shade wherever he can

Thankfully it eventually ended and back to the excitement of the Saturday afternoon  meat raffle at the Chatham Legion (cheap beer - great fish and chips).  

Kent selected our 10 (Jake) as man of the match - I think we selected their 10. 

Jake showing that a year of university was not wasted. 

Went to the Pan-am sevens tournament last weekend and the Canadian women rocked. The men, although they eventually won the gold, should have not make it out of the quarter finals in the morning against Chili.
Chili played really well and scored with a minute left in the game to go up 7 points.  Canada was trying to score when the hooter sounded and then Chili self-destructed.  Two players went offside on purpose and got yellows and then Canada knocked on.  Should be game over as all Chili needs to do is get some sort of whistle but instead the Chilean player picks up the ball and  runs for the Canadian goal (ref plays advantage), then when challenged he tries to kick down the field. The  ball stops in the Canadian in-goal where Canada picks it up and runs it back (seven against five) to score (two and a half minutes of extra time) , convert and win in overtime.  If it had been soccer they would have had a commission to figure out why that happened. 
I don't know why CBC did not show the finals after all they showed the entire women's beach volleyball quarter final which took more time than 20 minutes (or so someone told me). 

Tats of the team (2015) .
Guess who. 

Blast from the past:

Freddy Sayers who is an Englishman., married to a Grimsby girl, and who works in Yemem or Oman or somewhere over there and bought 5 tickets to the Texas mickey bottle of rum we were raffling to support Erick who was making a trip to train with the Huddersfield Giants Rugby League team in England and  won the bottle. Freddy is seen here visiting the clubhouse last week to accept his bottle and to donate it back to the club (we have been using this bottle for about twenty years).  Thank you very much Freddy for the donation to the cause and the bottle.(Freddy had just gotten back from a trip to Cuba and rum was not his drink of choice at the time). 

F

Freddy Sayers

Bruce Away

Grimsby Gentlemen 7: Bruce County Barbarians 53

Venue:

Bruce County: Where windmills go for the summer. 

Tiverton District Sports Center :  Bruce has built two fields on the grounds of the Tiverton Arena and got a Trillium grant to put in irrigation.  They use the Arena for change rooms and beer ups. A nice facility.

Referee: Mark Glendon from London.

Weather: 24 degrees

Attendance:  only me again (water boy, assistant referee, chronicler, chauffeur  and booster)

Team: 1. Nick Lord, 2. Ross Matheson,  3. Jon Millington, 4. Bob Mavro, 5. Dirk Reichow 6. Brendan Sculland, 8.  Duncan Earl, 8. Drew Redmond, 9. Jeremy Inglis (just passing through), 10. Jamie  Farrell, e, 11. James Vinneau, 12. Vic Blaney, 13. Heri Lewssoh,  14. Austin Marck, 15.. Derrick Weber., 16. No one named Bruce (but they don't either) 

Game:  No pictures (remember the rain last week).  

The game does not start until 1:45 as their jerseys are not there (the irony is not lost on us).  Nothing much interesting happens from our point of view until at about twenty minutes after one of their tries we manage with the help of a penalty to get the ball into their end and as they try a clearing kick from their five it is blocked by one of their players and it falls in front of Drew who falls on it for his first score for Grimsby.  Webs converts to put us back in the game for a few minutes.  Ultimately they score 9 tries but their are times when we are playing well (not much offence) but spoiling their ball and forcing them to make errors.  They score right at the half  and at the end of the game but not until 22 minutes of the second half.  

Anyway it was an effort but we made the trip with 15 players.  We have only played in Bruce once before (August 21 2010)and then we only brought 9 players.  We played one other time in a fall league combined with St. Catharrines but did not send many more players. Since then Bruce had won the division, grown to two teams, played up in the NRU A, lost their second team a couple of years ago and dropped to the NRU B (with us) this year. 

Vic was awarded man of the match by Bruce which we won, and we had a beer can joust with Jamie and Vic (which we lost maybe -  the rules were not determined before the start).  

A week off for the Pan-am games and they another long trip to Chatham. 

Bruce at home

Grimsby Gentlemen 12: Bruce County Barbarians 21? (not sure how you get 21 when they scored 4 tries)

Venue:  Alway Field (nice and green and soft)

Weather:  Monsoons came early this year.

a little foggy and wet in warm up

Referee:  Ian Stewart

Attendance:  For the middle of a rainstorm and the distance there were a number of Bruce supporters, our were a little low (actually none except me)  but it always happens Pride Weekend especially the Dyke Parade Day.

Team: 1. Ross Matheson, 2. Brandan Sculland, 3. Jon Millington, 4. Martin Van Der Hurk, 5. Nick Lord, 6. Duncan Earl, 7.  Dirk Reichow  8. Vic Blaney, 9. Nick Lemieux, 10. Jake D'Achille, 11. James Vinneau, 12. Heri Lewssoh, 13.  Jamie Farrell, 14. A., Nother 15. Derrick Weber., 16. W. Hoever 16. No one named Bruce on our team.

Game:  

Only a few pictures as it was raining and wanted to protect the camera (I had to run touch and bring water also) but it didn't work and the camera got wet anyway. I also did not take notes and it has been awhile but I think the game went as follows.

 Bruce scored in the first few minutes as we only had 13 men on the field. Sometimes it is easier to get your team 222 km to a game on time than it is to get your team to the home field (but not really).  One of our players was forgotten to be picked up and another really did not want to play because of injury but eventually got on the field.  Bruce scored again near the end of the half but in between it was a pretty even game.

Half time score:  Grimsby Gentlemen 0: Bruce County Barbarians 10

In the second half, Grimsby started strong and with strong running by Vic (actually I don't know who but it is usually Vic) we scored early to get closer.  Then at about 60 min Jake made a great break from our own end and passed to Jamie who touched down in the middle of the posts and with the conversion we went ahead.  There was much consternation amongst the Bruce as they thought they were much fitter than us and then showed they were by scoring twice in the final ten minutes to end a good game.

Final Grimsby Gentlemen 12: Bruce County Barbarians   21? (they send the score in)

Well done Grimsby - the early try - try taken held up - we were missing some players otherwise it could have been an improbably victory.

Try held up first half. 

Well done Bruce for making it the whole way with supporters and they stayed at the beer up for a long time.

Next week we travel to Bruce.

Wilmot at home

Grimsby Gentlemen 33: Wilmot Warthogs 24  (Yesss!!!)

Venue:  Alway Field (a rare Friday night game) k.o at 7:25

Weather: Around 20 degrees with sun (shadows towards the end of the game: mosquitoes were also the big winners that evening:

Referee: Brian Quistberg: I got Brian his first teaching job.

Attendance:  A good number for a Friday - many might have missed the change in date.

Team: 1.   Nick Lord 2. Ross Matheson,  3: Jon Millington (40 min), 4. Martin Van Der Hurk, 5. Jeremy Young(40 min), 6. Brendan Sculland  7. Mark Woodgate),  8.Drew Redford, 9. Nick Lemieux, 10. Jake D'Achille, 11. James Vinneau (60 min), 12. Vic Blaney, 13. Cameron Ruys (60 min), 14. Jeremy Inglis (first game with Grimsby- refereed our last home game) , 15. Jamie  Farrell, 16, Dirk Reichow (40 min), 17.Dean Crozier (40 min), 18. Bob Mavro (20 min), 19. Heri Lewssoh 20.  Erick Alvardo, 21. Gareth Rees, 22. Al Charron, 23. Rod Snow

Jeremy Inglis (fist game with Grimsby)

Dean Crozier (first game in a long time with Grimsby) back from New Zealand

Game:  Our first win of the season was a classical tactical misdirection that led Wilmot to believe they could beat us any time anywhere and they probably can  (except on this Friday night). The Warthogs originally wanted the Friday night game (about three weeks ago) and we agreed but the week before decided they wanted to change it back to the Saturday.  This would have resulted in complications on our side with players and licenses and so it remained Friday night.  It takes longer to get to Grimsby than expected and so we started late and Wilmot did not have much of a warm up.  However this did not stop them from threatening at the opening kickoff (we always get scored upon in the first five minutes) because we did not handle the kick and they attacked on both sides of the field and only some desperate tackling stopped them. And then we went down the field bobbing and weaving and passing and offloading until Jake put the ball down for five and Cameron kicked after 7 min. An impressive start.

We again did not handle the kick off well but managed kept Wilmot out until about the 20 min mark, but ed the conversion was missed.  However we than took the kickoff down the field and played in their end resulting in Vic scoring. At 30  min we kind of lost concentration and on a quick tap Wilmot scored and converted.  Then just before half  Nick Lemieux spotted the ball down  in the endzone to increase our lead  (Cameron converted again).

Half Time Score: Grimsby Gentlemen 21: Wilmot Warthogs 12

It was an exciting game after the half with Wilmot trying to catch up and Grimsby trying to maintain the lead.  At at about 60 min, Cameron using his football skills, kicked the ball into the endzone and put it down for his first try with Grimsby (he also injured himself) .  Martin was successful with the kick. Wilmot came back with a converted try about three minutes later only to have Vic reply with his second try at the seventy minute mark.  One of Wilmot's quick young wingers made it closer with a final try but Grimsby held on for a bonus point win.

Wilmot asked for unopposed scrums as they had players who had not played in the front row before which took a little away from the game.

Scorers:                 Cameron Ruys            1T, 3C              11 points
                              Vic Blaney                  2T                    10 points
                              Jake D'Achille             1T                      5 points
                              Nick Lemieux             1T                      5 points
                              Martin Van Der Hurk  1C                     2 points

So our strategy paid off with a win.  This will not work in the next couple of games with Bruce because we play them at home first and it turns out they read our blog.

We raffled off our big bottle to help send Erick off to England for his Rugby League Camp with Huddersfield and managed to give him $350 and ten pounds Stirling.  The winner of the bottle was Freddie Sayers from Saudi Arabia where they do not drink alcohol, so this bottle which has been with the club for over twenty years may still remain with us.

Here's four of the boys who will be having a life-changing event soon.

Sorry, this is the picture they wanted me to show. 

A few pictures from Jennifer (she has about 400 from this game along on the facebook page)

Heri getting up to speed.

Dean at work

Cameron using his footballing skills to kick the ball loose.

Cameron using his rugby skill to dot the ball down.