1300 WASPS vs Twickenham 0 – 21
5 minutes before kick-off and our complement of players was 9, about to face a squad of 22. The cavalry turns up in the shape of 3 very promising Colts: Charles, Donnie & Kennedy. With a show of goodwill that continued throughout the afternoon, Twickenham skipper Harry lent us 3 players and we were off. An emphatic start from the Oppo saw them put 3 tries over in 1st 5 minutes. But they took their foot off the gas and there was not another score in the game. We settled down.

1400 WASPS vs Scarboro’ Uni 7 – 7
Numbers were more of a general issue as the northerners had even less players than us. Some head-scratching on their part and we kicked-off 12-a-side, uncontested and 5 in the scrum. 1st try to us and so surprised were we that we conceded one shortly after. It began to dawn on us just how quick and competitive the Colts were.

1500 WASPS vs Northolt 35 – 0
Everything clicked. 13-a-side this time with contested scrums. Excellent feeding out from Callixte with James’ safe hands & vision meaning that Kennedy, Donnie & Ben received good ball, but if it came back to the pie-eaters Charles would take it up with fervour. Standout moments were Callixte’s missing-a-man pass (led to a score), and our pack pushing their’s over the line ... and your correspondent erroneously believing he had the Northolt captain bang to rights but learning what a legitimate “hand off” is. Somehow we came second in our group, as Scarboro were spanked elsewhere.

1630 Tug-of-War
Ahmed, Ben , Nathan, Chaz, Inigo as anchor … oh and did I mention 3 Colts. With a nice cadence they saw off Grasshoppers but were soundly seen-off by Twickenham in the semi-final.

1700 WASPS vs Grasshoppers 35 – 14 Insect War!
We gained 3 more from Twickenham- Gregg, Sibby & Fitzy and so walked proudly on to the pitch with a full complement, only to find Grasshoppers were 2 short. Nathan stood up to the plate without hesitation & donned green to level the numbers. They won the toss and we were kicking up the hill to start, a well-placed kick from Donnie & Kennedy’s pressure saw Grasshoppers fumble and WASPS settle into an extremely dominant 1st half, which ended with WASPS a respectable 21 points to nil. Half-time pep talk from old-hand (relatively) Chaz was peppered with concern not to lose concentration - alas his Cassandra-like prescience! The start of 2nd half saw the spacehoppers score from the kick-off and a second followed shortly thereafter. Their 3rd attempt was rebuffed steadfastly and WASPS coherently applied pressure with good simple passing and a good deal of recycling. A tap penalty spun out to Inigo from 10 yards saw him go over emphatically. Donnie put the icing on the cake with a lovely run and swan-dive under the posts, despite the best efforts of a “mature” Grasshopper to catch him. He’d also scored in 1st half, as had Ben and (for 1st time ever) your correspondent.

A top day out with everyone playing in all matches and gaining cohesion as the day went on. Special thanks is due to BJ for coming down and demonstrating how to tackle iteratively (what? Ed) and Ahmed for reluctantly but diligently playing hooker. Next season we’ll be looking for a hooker who wants to play socially, I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere, hmmm?
I much look forward to the return of the Occasionals in 2013/14 season.

Justin