As always I only have nominal control of the order in which these pictures are shown, so we'll be jumping from the beginning to the end and back again.
We (IBM) played Kurita (they produce super pure water for manufacturing purposes) at their ground in Ebina. It's about an hour and forty-five minutes from where I live now, so it wasn't the most pleasant of journeys. Luckily I met a couple of the guys as we headed down there, so I could just turn my brain off and follow them from train to train.
This picture is at the end of the day. The sky was fantastic, but we didn't feel much like appreciating it on account of the 40-18 loss we sustained. We were well within reach until the last ten or fifteen minutes when they put a try or two on us. As with other leagues around the world, if you're within seven of the opposition you get a bonus point. I assume the four try rule applies too, but don't quote me on that.
This is right at the beginning of the warmup. It's suddenly dropped a few degrees which is normal for this time of year, but knowing it doesn't stop it being any more of a surprise to the system. Up until last week I'd been seriously considering buying another aircon unit to supply the entire apartment with legionnaires. And cold air.
This guy comes to all our games. He waves the flag with much aplomb, and is quite vocal in his support. Last year IBM lost by 50 or more points to this team, so us being within a try to the last must be encouraging for the supporters as well as the staff.
I only included this one because I'm obviously being pulled off the ground finger first by a mysterious force, although you can't see the shock on my face at this happening.
We made some room down the right and our fullback put a ball through to chase. I got there first but it didn't bounce kindly as I bent down to pick it up.
Despite quite obviously NOT having a rugby ball in my possession, I got tackled. This isn't american football so that's rather illegal. Despite his best efforts I managed to chip it on further for our outside centre to dot down.
I just included this to prove that I can run.
I turned my ankle about 50 minutes into the match which fucking hurt. I can now walk on it fine, but I can't really perform any dynamic movements. It'll be okay in about two weeks (less if I do all the physio, eat well and all the rest of it) so no problem. If you promise to keep it a secret, I'll be available for the next game should the coaches choose to pick me.
The sky was actually several shades of red deeper than that; the photo doesn't quite do it justice.
All things considered we played alright. We lost, which is unfortunate, but we improved over the last match substantially and that's important for the long-term.
I played well. I knocked one ball on which was unfortunate, but that was right at the beginning and nerves were probably to blame.
I turned over one ball, didn't miss a tackle all game and made a couple of breaks. I didn't make much ground, probably only 25 metres total which frankly speaking isn't good enough, but they were clean metres with one of the breaks resulting in an out of the tackle offload which gained us another few metres.
When we were on our line due to a penalty, they played the ball quickly with our entire team having their backs turned huddled near the posts. I ran across to their centre who was over the line and falling down but I was too late. I hit him and stuck an arm in under him in order to dislodge the ball but he was absolutely going to score regardless of what I did.
Regardless I managed to hit the ball out of his hands and force a knock-on.
I saved an absolutely guaranteed try.
Exactly two people congratulated me by saying 'thank you,' in the most muted manner possible.
Sheesh.
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