Fixture

Having spent Christmas day and boxing day on call and not having a drink, just watching copious amounts of Christmas TV films including Kill Bill, Catch me if you can and various westerns. My special day would be focused on our match against St Clears and it was to be a great day for us again. St Clears came to Laugharne seeking revenge after they lost at home to us when we met last and like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill as Black Mamba said to Copperhead in the first fight scene "we have unfinished business".
 

It was good to have our captain back, Rhys Thomas playing in this game after popping a rib against Whitehead and he was able to put in a top performance. The two sides were evenly matched and it was to be fight to the end. Like the speech made in Catch me if you can, "Two mice fall into a bucket of cream, the first mouse struggles for some time but eventually drowns , the second mouse struggles to the end and turns the cream into butter and climbs out of the bucket" The analogy is, Both teams played well but there could only be one winner.
 

It kept dry for the duration of the game, but it was still heavy going as the ground was quite wet. St Clears had the wind in the first half and used it to its full potential, kicking long into our half gaining ground and getting in close enough to put over two penalties. The referee obviously had a new whistle for Christmas which he liked the sound of and there were a number of penalties given with both sides loosing players to the sin bin. Our pack were again outstanding and we were holding our own in the scrums and we attacked their line in the last few moments of the first half. We were left of the posts and our pack were digging in we needed the points to stay in it. Time after time St Clears were penalised and some would say we should have been awarded a penalty try. As our pack were relentless, driving in and getting another penalty. This time Mikey took a quick tap and went over in the corner. Jameson was unlucky with the conversion and we finished the half trailing by one point 5-6.
 

I was optimistic that we would have the better second-half, as we now had the wind and also our side looked a lot fitter. St Clears were not about to lie down. Owain Thomas was taking his turn to kick for position and was making good yards, however it was difficult to contest in the line outs as the referee penalised any contact. The game was generally being played in the middle of the field both sides putting in some big hits. Our forwards carried well, but it was Owain our outside half who managed to find a gap and headed for their corner flag but was chased down and had to put in a cross field kick for Tomos Davies to eventually pick up and go over for a fine try. Owain failed to get the conversion, but we were now 10-6 in front and we just had to hold on. Again St Clears came back and were attacking our left flank with some effective rolling mauls, which we had trouble defending and clearing. But as the light faded, we cleared our line for one last time and for once it was really good to hear the ref's whistle. Final score 10-6. Well done to both teams.

Finally there was one other battle that was going on during the game and that was the battle of the little big horn with reference to our western films. My friend Clive Pickersgill (used to play on the wing for Laugharne) had been selected by the St Clears RFC Committee to construct a super horn that would compete against my John Morgan Auto parts, manually operated £6 air horn. Like the Trojan horse, the Super horn arrived at the ground under disguise and was wheeled behind the stand and put into place for it to be brought to life when St Clears went over for a try or when they finally won the game. But the horn was silent. The only horn that was blowing that day, was to be the £6 horn from John Morgan Auto Parts (That deserves a Sponsor Robert Pearce, and can you get them in blue and yellow?).
 

 Thanks once again to our squad, coaches, Louise our Physio (who was actually there this week), Sylvia (loving the nail polish 💙)and Julie for the stats, Kelly for some lovely photos, our Sponsors , our supporters, Billy Vordaman Riley Pearce for the score board and finally Josie Simkiss for the video of Mikey's try and for putting us right on the T Rex song. 

Richard Griffith