Donkey Drop...

Last week the Rugby Club at which I coach found itself in a peculiar predicament in the U20 age group, particularly at the bottom end of the age group. You see the mighty ‘Cubs’ side, aka the (reach for a) D(ream) team had two problems.

Firstly they had been practising consistently over the last 9 week period since trials and had not had 1 official fixture, either preseason or league, to fulfil. They were scheduled to play on two occasions but the thieving C team stole that shot at a match as they were in the same Western Province boat, drifting up the SA Rugby stream sans a ‘fixture’ paddle.

The second hurdle that was retarding the Cubs’ escalation to rugby greatness was the inability of their formidable head coach from actually taking up his Lombardi position. The assistant coach has more enthusiasm than a hungry two-month old baby boy ogling the hardware at a strip club yet lacks the social and, possibly, mental capacity to do the job alone. But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth as if reach for a dream were nice enough to sponsor a coaches aid we must receive it with gratitude and grace.

I was asked to step in where possible and lend any hand that I could in their preparation last week for the very exciting proposition of their inaugural fixture of the 2007 season. I darted across to a Thursday practice with 45 minutes to turn the back-line into cohesive slick unit based on skill, pace and vision. My expectations were a tad high.

They oozed heart and enthusiasm which every good rugby scholar needs but lacked the other important necessaries of speed, skill, communication (not joking) and size. Now to be fair, as a conglomerate they had all 4 of these mentioned qualities but had them equally divided amongst them.

The black chap from the Ivory Coast was blisteringly quick and the only thing worse than his hands was the problem that he couldn’t stop or change direction. Catching the ball depended more upon the ability of the passer to wedge it somehow under the flyer’s jersey but then we had the problem of trying to make him slow down before the dead ball line rather than using the fence at the bottom of the C field as one of those F14 trip wires on the US Nimitz. (playing toward the concrete pavilion at the end of the A field wasn’t a viable option)

The chubby dude in the Real Madrid soccer shirt had skills like Carlos Spencer, which he attributed to playing age group rep status indoor soccer his entire life, as a goalie. To him running wasn’t really a viable option. He was exceptional at moving laterally over a distance of 4m but anything beyond that was out of the question. He would obviously be brilliant at defending in the 12 channel and with the accuracy of his passing would be crucial in wedging the ball under the flyer’s jersey.

The little chap wouldn’t stop talking, not once and when his vocal efforts were directed to marshalling rugby troupes it was like watching an assertive cox marshal his rowing eight. Unfortunately he was about the same size as one and proudly sported his cotton traders u11C rugby jersey which was still a bit big for him.

The guy who stuck his hand up for the 13 jersey was incredible. He made Ronnnie Coleman look like Philip Burger he was so massive. However, since he could neither run, pass, catch and grunted once, I reckoned he was in fact a forward that got left behind when they went to hit the scrum machine cause he went to down his USN powershake.

These four were supplemented by 3 further oddballs that definitely weren’t members of Robo Gym and their presence there was only confirmed by heavy darth vadar breathing and the plentiful availability of hands to carry the flyer’s stretcher to the physioroom when he ran the blind side wing off chubby 12 move, but didn’t account for the US(N) Ronnie being in his direct path.

I drove home on Thursday night forlorn. Our match on Saturday was against a strongish clubs B side. B side? Are you kidding? My rabble of garbage patch kids didn’t have a 1st team cap between. I just couldn’t understand why such a bunch of donkeys insisted on playing the game at a competitive level devoting 4 days a week to the sport. 4 times 9 is 36, and this was their first game.

My disbelief was appeased that Saturday as my loyal chargers ran out onto the pitch of the opposition club. We won 49-0 in a classic display of precision, execution, grit and determination. Fair enough, skill, finesse and talent weren’t as prevalent but the scoreboard didn’t lie!

My question was answered! Why play rugby competitively when you really don’t have what it takes and no future beyond the D team? Simple, because our donkeys are better than their donkeys and for 70 minutes of rugby you can be an absolute rockstar.