IBM vs Secom

So we played a company team called Secom at the weekend.

They were in the same position as us in having lost their previous games, so both teams were battling to keep out of the bottom two.  The last two in the league have to play relegation matches against the top two in the league below us.

We played in the national stadium in Japan with the Secom fans on one side, and our supporters on the other side.  Despite the relative emptiness of the stadium the noise and atmosphere were great.  They don't do the Japanese baseball thing of making up chants for the players (there's SO MUCH downtime in baseball, I guess the fans have to keep themselves amused somehow) but they get behind the action nonetheless.

The game was played at a thousand miles per hour and there were a lot of mistakes, particularly towards the end.

I don't know how far I ran (no fancy GPS units for us) but it felt like I ran gauntlet as I came out somewhat bruised.

Knocked six bells out of a couple of people and won a few turnovers which isn't really a wingers job, but I scored a try which makes up for the lack of attacking I did all game.  Kind of.

Next up is Shane Williams and Mitsubishi.  I think that's another away game?

IBM vs Secom

Secom are a team in our league.  IBM beat them last year, making them the only victory of the season.

As this year has started with a couple of positive results, we could have been expected to go on and further improve despite the four days of solid, heavy rain prior to the occasion.  Amazingly enough, it wasn't particularly wet underfoot (the field must have immense drainage) and there was no rain in the air - so it ended up being fairly dry.

Unfortunately, a week ago during the game against Fuji Xerox (which we won by forty or fifty) I'd pulled my left hamstring scoring my second try of the day.  I was only on for fifteen minutes.  In that time I made 1 tackle (still 100% for the season) and effected one turnover along with the two scores.

Needless to say I was disappointed not to be playing today - a game in which we won by only two points.  Seemingly neither team could catch a ball, and we were constantly pushed off the ruck meaning we lost momentum all over the place.  Having said that, we won, which considering the backwards and forwards nature of the game is impressive.

Anyway, that aside, I took a few pictures.  

I'm particularly tired today because I hit the gym hard afterwards, so the colour balancing on a lot of these is somewhere between wrong, and completely wacko.  Try not to think about it too much.