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Sons Of Serevi RFC Official Webpage
Press Release
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Mon, 26 Jun 2006
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SONS CAPTURE FIRST PIECE OF SILVERWARE
The Sons of Serevi trophy counter was up and
running following a spectacular showing at
Nottingham Casuals Solstic Sevens at the weekend.
Before the tournament began, captain Alex Mead was
aiming just for the Sons to rack up their first
tries in competitive rugby – little did he know
that he'd finish the weekend going up to collect
the vase runners-up trophy.
First up for the Sons were Select 7 - a team of
elite athletes from Nottingham featuring, rumour
has it, at least sevens internationals - but the
Sons were up for this one. While initially failing
to start and letting Select 7 take the lead, they
hit back through Mead after he collected a kick
through from German centre Christian Nehls and
crossed the whitewash.
Star signing Andrew Irish turned on the style in
the second-half after replacing Tom Bright and ran
in two spectacular tries to bring the Sons within
grasp of victory. Sadly though, for all the huffing
and puffing they couldn't blow the Select 7 wall
down and lost by a margin of just two points.
Next up were Battersea Ironsides A and with a squad
numbering roughly 78, it was always going to be a
tough match. Unfortunately, in selection Mead broke
up the scrummaging holy trinity of Chief Stickler,
Paddy Edinborough and Rhys Watkinis and the Sons
paid the price as they were hammered at the scrums.
They did however manage to score one try through
speedster Bright, who found the gas to run in the
Sons token points.
Tournament favourites Templar were up next and the
Sons tried an experimental line-up with Andrew
Irish and Nehls pairing up at half-back in place of
the usual Mead/P Irish combination. Veteran-looking
prop Watkins also captained the side for the first
time. It made little difference as, despite
Stickler glaring menacingly at them (when they
weren't looking of course) the Sons were crushed.
With one guy - roughly the size of a modest stately
home - shouting 'smash 'em', the Templars did just
that. Steve Irish's tournament was almost over when
one of them picked him up Gulliver-style and
threatened to bite his head off, but the ref
stepped in and pointed out that would be worth at
least a yellow card.
The Sons offered some resistance with the tackling
of Edinborough worthy of note, but it wasn't
pretty. Matters got worse when Pete Irish came onto
the field and was promptly dumped and broke his
collar-bone - effectively ruling him out of the
Sons' sevens season.
As they nursed their many wounds, the battered Sons
then found themselves in a battle off the field. In
an administrative error of the most heinous, they
had been promoted from the vase competition (for
fourth-placed sides) to the plate competition (for
third-placed sides) but after length negotiations
between Mead, Watkins, the organisers and Stoma
(the side that should be in the plate), the Sons
got the result they wanted and were demoted to the
vase.
In the vase, the Sons earned themselves a bye all
the way to the final and, suddenly, they could
taste the silverware. "It's the future," they said
in unison.
After an inspiring speech from Mead containing no
less than 52 expletives, the Sons went into battle
with Aireborough for the vase. Five minutes into
the game, Bright eventually arrived onto the field
after struggling with those tricky double knots on
his boots ("does the rabbit go down the hole and
then round the tree, or the other way around,"
pondered Bright).
But alas, the Sons were outclassed as Aireborough
muscled their way to victory. Carrying several
injuries and with a threadbare side, the Sons
simply couldn't compete with Aireborough and were
effectively muscled out of the game. "It was
gutting," said Mead after the final defeat. "The
lads gave everything but were still recovering from
the Templar battering the day before - the fifteen
pints everyone drank on Saturday probably didn't
help either."
Even in defeat the Sons still gained a runners-up
trophy and, being the entertainers and tournament
favourites that they are, they received the biggest
cheers of all when collecting their shield.
"Without the Sons, this tournament would have been
a failure," said one unnamed source. "Their style
and panache has to be admired, I only wish we had
so much class," said one Templar player, who also
asked to be considered for Sons of Serevi
selection. He was refused. "Only the finest peas
get into this pack," said Mead before launching
into a fine rendition of the Poddington Peas theme
tune. "It doesn't get any better than this," said
vice capt Rhys Watkins as he gazed at the
runners-up trophy while tapping his foot to Mead's
song.
Posted 04:19
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