Saturday 6th December 2008 Mids 5 West (South)

Manor Park 24 – 9 Coventrians

Covents Find Park Life Tough as Home Side are Lords of the Manor

Coventrians’ 5 game unbeaten run came to an end at Griff & Coton today as they went down 9 – 24 to hosts, Manor Park. Before the start, both teams and their supporters observed a minutes silence in memory of Jeff Platt and our thanks to the Park lads for their respect.

Covents kicked off without Kieran, Woz, Dave Bailey or Swaff but still looked strong with Harry, HaydOn (with an O) and The Digbeth Digger on debut. Forward play is still alive and well at The Park and both packs rumbled from the onset, exchanging line outs and territorial advantage. In the 10th minute Park were caught offside and from the resulting penalty, Dead-eye slotted from the 22 to make it 3 – 0. Unfortunately for Dougie, the noisy cheers from the twenty or so Covents’ supporters were for touch judge Fishy who managed to get his hand up as the kick sailed over.

Park came back in the 13th minute to force a line out near Covent’s line which was cleared. Two minutes later the blue and whites attacked as Chris Simons stormed through four tackles to make halfway and skipper Danny Pearson kicked long into Park’s 22 only for them to return and miss touch. Rowan grabbed the pill and set off, beating three players before being held and bundled into touch. There followed perhaps the best passage of play for Covents as again Simons and then Kev Walters attacked but were repelled by red and black hooped defenders. On 21 minutes, Brum-half Carter put in one of his trademark bulldozer hits on halfway and things were looking good.

While HaydOn was on the sideline receiving attention for a blood injury (not groin) from Lauren, fly-half Chris Simons cleared his lines and was hit late by a Park lock which resulted in a minor scuffle. Luckily they were quickly separated as Chris, giving away about 5 inches and 6 stone could have seriously tickled him. On 34 minutes Covents attacked again through Chris, Jones the boot and Dead-eye which resulted in a scrum on halfway. Two minutes later, Park found touch accurately from a penalty to land on Covents’ try line. Covents defended stoutly winning their own penalty but Park were soon back and running at our defence. They were only just stopped in the same corner leaving Dead-eye to clear with a strong kick.

Park came again and determined to score before the break only a good tackle from Rowan prevented them from doing so. With the pressure on Covents and Park driving forward, the referee penalised them for a “truck & trailer” and the juggernauts were halted by the half-time whistle. An enthralling half ended with honours fairly even and Covents three points to the good.


Covents started down the slope with Mikey Kiburi catching well from the restart and the forwards, led by HaydOn and an aggressive D J drove Park backwards in a surge that was almost, but not quite Wildebeest. This led to Park’s silver fox of a prop cutting his nose and play was halted as Lauren treated him. As she doesn’t understand Treacle Town, his plaintive cries of, “It’s me groin, me groin love” were lost in translation and he trudged back on forlornly thinking of what might have been. From the next scrum, Carl Thornton, back row ace, showed pace from the base to leave Park with egg on their face as he made twenty yards. In the 44th minute, Dead-eye ran from deep and kicked long. Park returned it and when Covents ran back, a deliberate knock on gave Dead-eye the chance to double the lead from Park’s 10 metre line which he did with a good kick, 6 – 0.

The next few minutes were dedicated to Wimbledon as both sides engaged in some frenetic tennis leaving everyone feeling sorry for the ball as it sailed back and forth but from a 50th minute scrum inside Covents’ half, Park went up the blindside and unfortunately (for us) through three tackles to score in the corner. The try was unconverted leaving the score at 6 – 5 to Covents but the writing was on the wall. At this point, Dead-eye was substituted for Ben Connell and the three-quarter line reshuffled which seemed to unsettle the lads somewhat resulting in Rowan knocking on while attempting to catch in his 22. From the penalty, Park’s kicker fluffed an easy kick and catching the ball inside the try line, Covents only just managed to find touch in the 54th minute.

From the resulting line out Park ran it through the backs and scored easily again in the same corner to lead 10 – 6. Danny gathered his troops into a huddle and turned the air blue as he read them the riot act. The conversion was missed again and Covents were still in the match as Jones the boot put a couple of good kicks in to leave the lads in Park’s corner, looking for a score only for Park to secure possession and clear their lines. On the hour, Park’s kicker finally found his range and potted a penalty to stretch their lead to 13 – 6.

In the 64th minute Covents were still looking good and a determined drive which involved Rowan, DJ, HaydOn and Mikey forced a penalty which Jones the boot sailed over with a decent kick to pull Covents back to 13 – 9 down. Two minutes later Wayne (3 Ouzos) Brandfour came on for Digger but the wheels on Covent’s bus started to wobble when in the 68th minute Park scored again in their favourite corner to make the score 18 – 9. It has to be said that although we were on the opposite side, it looked for all the world that Rowan had put his man in touch (as he was nearly in someone’s greenhouse) but the try stood and that was that. The kick was poor, unconverted again but the try seemed to have knocked the wind out of Covent’s sails and Park increased their lead to 21 – 9 with a penalty kick on 72 minutes and again two minutes later to underline their strong finish, 24 – 9.

At the final whistle, Manor Park cheered loudly demonstrating how pleased they were with their win. This says a lot about how far Covents have come in the last six weeks but as crumbs of comfort go, it was pretty small. Matching Manor Park for fifty minutes or so, with the game in the balance, somehow we lost our way and allowed errors and old bad habits to creep back in. Credit to the home side though, they came on strong in the last thirty and proved that their back yard is no “walk in the park.” Once again the game was a hard fought and clean encounter, leaving the lads disappointed but not despondent.


Coventrians 2nds 0 – 67 Manor Park Warwickshire 3

Playing with 13 against 15 for the whole match, the lads lost heavily in a fairly one sided contest, noted for its frequent Manor Park overlaps. Perhaps the only highlight was the return of Sir Giz of Gisbourne, the Baron of Bulkington. Looking ridiculously fit for his age, Giz packed down in the 2nd row and apparently tackled everything and ran his “taters” off as the boys battled on in the face of adversity. Typical of the 2nd team spirit though, several lads were heard to say that maybe next season they could join a harder, more competitive league . . .

Post-script; Some injury news on Woz (for the Jag boys) whose ear looked like an aubergine on steroids last week. He ended up in hospital to have the thing drained and surgically modified. Shrieking (or should that be Shreking?) like Kate Bush singing Wuthering Heights, Woz bore the pain with fortitude and then realised the nurse was only taking his pulse.

Thanks to Sean "Santa"ton for providing mulled wine and mince pies on Saturday and for helping coach the lads from the touch line with the rest of us - no wonder they lost.

We are still no nearer to finding out what a POD is. Simon Hull almost cracked it by offering the really useful, "It's wot peas come in" but apparently this isn't it.

Haircut of the week (thanks for starting this DJ) goes to Danny for his retro, go faster Mullet. He looks like something between Duran Duran and Martin "Crazy Horse the Mane Grower" Harrington in 1986.