Another Load of Cobblers ....

[Kaz]

Indeed Ally It's like the old saying "Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, while rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen"

[JoM]

A skateboard might be the way to go Ossie, what with petrol prices the way they are.

The more vinegar the better on chips.

Joe’s got a busy week coming up:
Thursday - Leeds v Villa
Saturday - Man Utd v Spurs
Sunday - West Ham v Villa
Tuesday- Man Utd v Atletico Madrid

I’ll be at the Utd games with him but the Villa games are with his friend Zak. His Dad would’ve been going but Zak’s Mom isn’t well at the moment so Joe’s going to keep Zak company. I assumed with the Leeds game being away that the West Ham one was at Villa Park but no, he’s looking forward to seeing the new(ish) stadium though.

[TheOstrich]

Good luck to Joe! That's quite an itinery and a fair old mileage to cover - I'm too old for 4 games in a week these days, especially Premiership at that

[JoM]

To be 21 again, hey Ossie

[Kaz]

He'll be a busy boy

[TheOstrich]

To the surgery last Monday, with a heavy heart , to drop in this month’s prescription requests. One major benefit of the pandemic has been that Ossie has been able to duck the ritualistic confrontation of the Annual Medical Review for the last two years , but the bird’s time is rapidly coming up, and he suspects that next month’s prescription paperwork will demand he undertakes said Review before being issued with any more horse-tablets . Hopefully Ossie will be able to do it on-line, but won’t be able to avoid the tell-tale blood tests, etc.

One concern is that the Ostrich resembles (thanks to lock-down home baking and no exercise) a fat turkey these days . So I popped into the pharmacy over the road:

“I need a new pair of bathroom scales, please, when I stand on them these days I can’t see the little spokes to read them , so it had better be digital.”
“Yes, we have some in – any preferences?”
“Preferably one which lies, or at the very least is economical with the truth. ”
“OK, well there’s one at £9.99and one at £14.99.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, the £9.99 one is pretty basic, but the £14.99 one has extra bells and whistles; it calculates your BMI and tells you how much you’ve over-eaten .”
“The £9.99 one, please.”

Job done, the Ostrich took it home and the results of the first weigh-in were pretty horrific .....

“Oh gawd, I’m heavier than Hank the Tank.”
“Hank the Tank??”
“You know, that bear in California that keeps breaking into people’s homes for food.”
“Well, you will keep raiding the fridge,” said Mrs O, unsympathetically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrnKjjfHFw4

So Ossie is now, inevitably, on a crash diet . Nothing can be eaten outside the hours of 12 noon and 6 p.m. In between that, the bird is allowed two bowls of soup. No cake, no bikkits (especially KitKats ), no toast, no peanut butter. A miserable existence, but it seems to be working; the Ostrich has shed half a stone in 6 days ! Half a stone to go …..

Saturday, and another visit to Slaughtergate as, in the current climate, there seems little point using up petrol travelling out of town when there’s a noteworthy game on your doorstep ….. Bradford-on-Avon RFC was a club on my “Must Visit” list pre-Covid, but I had never got around to it, so it was an ideal opportunity to finally knock them off today, admittedly away from home.

North Dorset 2nds and Bradford were 3rd vs 4th in the league at the start of the game, although neither side had much hope of overtaking the two front-runners. North Dorset, again employing their ground game, opened the scoring after 13m, but Bradford-on-Avon quickly replied, both tries unconverted.

An unfortunate incident occurred after 19m, the visitors’ no.14 breaking out of his half to eventually score under the posts, but the home touch judge flagged for a foot in touch. The referee didn’t realise this until he’d awarded the try and the Bradford place-kicker was teeing up for the conversion. So the play was brought back. If this had been a soccer match, we’d no doubt have had 11 players surrounding and screaming at the referee ; the Bradford captain merely had a quiet word with the referee about it before play resumed, and his team responded in the best possible way – 5 tries in the next 14 minutes! The incident was quite close to me – my instinctive reaction was that the call was a bit iffy, but these things happen so quickly, and as a spectator, you tend to be concentrating on the player, not the touchline …..

Bradford-on-Avon quickly realised that North Dorset were defensively lacking in mobility and particularly vulnerable to attack round the outside on both wings. With an interval score of 10-34, the home team had nothing left to play for apart from pride, and they did manage to cross the line 3 times in the second half, but Bradford more than matched them. Full marks to Bradford-on-Avon, they played extremely well and took their chances – no arguing the result today.

Meanwhile, on the top pitch, with a slightly later kick-off time, the 1st XV were hosting Blandford, league leaders vs second, everything to play for, and I was able to follow the action in both games. In the Six Nations, when Scotland play England, there’s a side-issue – the teams also play for the Calcutta Cup. Same here in this Dorset version of “El Classico”, the two teams were also playing for the Badger Cup! I have no idea what this obsession with badgers is in this part of the world because you rarely see them, they’ve been hunted to extinction, but then again, not everything is exactly black and white ….

Now this was an extremely tense affair in the first half, in which North Dorset gradually pulled ahead; a 16m unconverted try, a 23rd minute 25 yard penalty (get the points on the board – sound tactic in a game like this) and a second try on 31m - with a fortuitous conversion bouncing over off the far post - gave them a 15-0 half-time lead. They increased this lead on 60m with a close-range dive-over, American Football style, but the game wasn’t yet won, not by a long chalk.

Blandford regrouped and put the home team under immense pressure throughout the next quarter. They got on the board with a converted try after 64m and laid siege to the North Dorset line, having at least two potential tries chalked off – one held up, the other brought back for an infringement. With time running out, they secured an unconverted try to make it 22-12, but a North Dorset interception then put the game out of their reach and a fifth home try sealed it at the finish.

Riveting stuff; North Dorset had to play out of their skins to win this one, and Blandford were well in contention until the final two home tries put a gloss on the scoreline. North Dorset are now 9 league points clear of Blandford with three games to play; the title is now theirs to lose.

12/03/22 - Tribute Dorset & Wilts 2 Central (Level 9) (14:00)
North Dorset II RFC 27 – Bradford-on-Avon RFC 60
Admission: free
Programme: none
Refreshments: chips £1
Attendance: 57

Tribute Dorset & Wilts 1 South (Level 8) (14:30)
North Dorset RFC 32 – Blandford RFC 12
Attendance: 287

That brings the current run of rugby games to an end; back to soccer next week, all being well.

[Ally]

Did you succumb to the £1 chips Ossie or were you just letting your faithful followers know what was available?

Great read!

[JoM]

LOL Al

We had a successful visit to the chippy on the way home from Manchester last night. Our nearest has been closed for a while so the last couple of times we’ve come back from matches on Saturday evenings we’ve called into one in Penkridge to save cooking when we’ve got in. I only had £10 with me yesterday and they only take cash so we stood outside for a minute, looking through at the menu and working out what we could have for £10. A small kebab for Joe and a regular bag of chips each for me and John (thought we’d better take him some home). As they were about to close the lovely man gave Joe chips with his kebab and the regular chips both turned into cod and chips.

Joe’s currently on game 3 of 4. We both thoroughly enjoyed Ronaldo’s hat trick yesterday, although the Asian tourists are now back in and silently watching the games through what they’re recording on their phone screens for the full 90 minutes There were another two next to this chap, and another next to Joe on the other side of the wall. They might as well just stay home and watch on TV.

12A8E950-ACCA-4735-AE35-96B2741E7ADC.jpeg (101.43 KiB) Viewed 2949 times

[Workingman]

Jo, in the England v Ireland game yesterday - great match - there was a shot of the crowd and there was a woman watching on her phone. She was so excited at being on the big screen and on TV that she waived - at her phone!

Good read Ossie, shame I got mixed up with Bradford and Blandford, who was playing whom, and the scores.

[Kaz]

Did you succumb to the £1 chips Ossie or were you just letting your faithful followers know what was available? !

You beat me to it!