Travels with Dinno (11/11/12) Yorkshire Cup Round 2: Morley

On a cool, crisp, bright November morning we arrived at Lodge Lane for this vital match. A win would see us continue to storm on towards the finals. A loss would leave us with a few Sunday's spare in the months to come.  The Remembrance Day part of the morning was observed impeccably by everybody. The bugler playing the last post was haunting as you could hear and feel the wind blowing across the ground through the silence.
How was the team feeling in the build up to this important fixture on the back of two relatively poor performances in recent weeks? Were there doubts that we could see off Morley? Well actually to be truthful there weren't. Morley had announced midweek that they couldn't put out a team and so by default we won.
Morley did bring a combined twelves and thirteens team down. During our spell with Huddersfield we had played them three times and the record was won 1 lost 1 drawn 1. It was planned that this would be a chance for the development team to get some match time together.
The boy was starting at fly half again. By the way, in case you haven't worked it out yet my blogs are entirely biased. I support the team I am playing for wholeheartedly and am like any other parent I want my kid to do well.  The first half was a tight run affair. The boy was involved in at least two of the tries. The air was turning blue on a regular basis as he kept taking the ball into contact areas. This was a problem that the first XV seemed to have a couple of weeks ago. The boy was getting the ball out of contact and creating space. Morley were first to score. However, the reply was quick. Brad scored a try followed by another from Olly. Morley then brought the scores level again. Then after an impressive backs move where all of the backs were involved the ball came out to Brendan on the wing who went in to score. You could hear the groans from his dad's wallet. Half time Dinno 15 - Morley 10. The feeling was that over the second half the development team could win this comfortably purely because of the way they played the game. Driving forward play supported by backs at the breakdown and then strong team work from the back division who were playing flowing creative rugby.
At half time the coaches decided to change everything and put on the first XV. Naturally the parents of the development side wanted to see them play out a whole game. That is because there are the makings of a strong team and they are starting to gel as a unit. We wanted them to win but were more interested in the performance. To quote Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch there was trouble at t'mill.
After half time it became something of a rout. At times the scene reminded me of the final battle scene from The Last Samurai where a group of noble warriors are being cut to shreds by a mechanical army. The first XV weren't in a merciful mood and the sight of Morley players on the ground wasn't great. They gave a great effort but ultimately the introduction of the first XV and then the return of Ben on kicking duties told. The second half saw 5 tries (2 from Rupert, 1 each from Harry, Will and Todd) along with 3 conversions lead to a final score of 46-10. The boy was named man of the match.
Other results from the 2nd Round saw Cleckheaton, Rishworthians, Otley, Middlesbrough, York, Harrogate progress. There are still two results I haven't been able to track down. The more mathematically gifted among you will have noticed that with those two results to come there will be 9 teams in the next round. Enquiring minds are keen to know what the hell is going to happen to get down to an even number.
This weekend we are either away at Harrogate or playing Otley or Wath.
By the way the bacon rolls and hot chocolate at Dinno are excellent.