North Bay Cup - After Action Report

Just a few thoughts on Saturday's tournament win.

1. Iron Men - We rolled up to North Bay and won a tournament with 16 players. There were whores available; Paulie Two Kids (P2K) would have gladly played for us and the Marine who scored their two tries against us in the Semis offered to help us out in the Finals, but we were having none of it. The Beard and Marvin platooned for the last couple of games and Pete the Rock got to take a half off, but the rest of the team went straight Iron Man all day long.

2. Sunshine - Sunshine has been nicked up for a few weeks now, but he somehow always manages to play on Saturday and not show any sign that he's less than 100%.

As a forward your worst nightmare is busting your ass all game only to see one bad play on the wing cost you a win, but Lapato did a fantastic job of leading our Back Three on Saturday. We had two very green rookies out on the Wings (Rookie Jason and Rookie Matt), but Sunshine kept them in position and, not only were they not a liability, Sunshine's guidance turned them into an asset.

3. Coach - This was probably the first time in 5 or 6 years that I had the opportunity to play an A-side game with Murray. He's still as good as he ever was, perhaps a step slower, but the guy is damn near 50 years old and he's probably still the best player on our team.

As I was explaining to the Beard on the way home, more than anyone else I consider Murray to be my rugby Father; he raised me in this game and shaped me into the player I am today. All that I am or ever do related to rugby can be traced back the many, many lessons I learned from Murray Kruger.

4. Marvin - What can I say about the ODB (Ol' Dirty Bastard)? If Murray is my Father on the team, then Marvin is my big (well older at least) brother; never afraid to smack me on the back of the head to keep me straight and always leading by example. Marvin touched down for a score in the first game and then brought the heat coming in off the bench for the rest of the day. At the party after the tournament Marvin made the observation that the guys that were there on Saturday are the ones who (generally) are going to be leading the way forward on this team.

I think Marvin is slowly morphing into a short, Black version of Gessner.

5. Ron - Is there anything that guy can't do? After leading the team at Scrumhalf all season, he graciously made way for Murray at #9 and bumped out to Flyhalf to fill in for the injured Bible. When P2K told us before the Semi-Final that Quantico couldn't defend against a switch in the backline, Ron set one up and ran it to perfection at the first opportunity. Ron had more than a few nice kicks for territory over the course of the day and also scored the initial try of the final game of the day. Monster day all around for the man from Boston.

6. The Boat Race Proposal - The tournament ran long and after trouncing the Marines in the Semi-Final, Kenny from North Bay told us that there was a proposal on the table: instead of playing the final game Brooklyn RFC challenged us to Boat Race to determine the tournament champion.

The reason for this proposal was obvious; those cats from Brooklyn knew they had dodged a bullet in our first game. They scored on a penalty kick because I lost my shit and got sin-binned when one of their guys came off-sides and then tackled me without the ball. We still had a chance to win that first game with a few minutes left but we fucked up on a penalty play on their goal line that almost went all the way back the other way. Thankfully Sunshine didn't give up on the play and ran the guy down after 80 meters.

The unanimous sentiment on West Pot was that we went up there to play rugby and that's what we were going to do. I guess the guys from Brooklyn thought we were sure to accept their proposal, because most of them had their boots off and weren't stretched out. The end result was Brooklyn got their dicks knocked in the dirt by a team that was ready to play. Still, those dudes gave us all we could handle and I look forward to playing them again in the future.

7. The Skip - It's difficult to overstate how much our Skipper did for this team; he played hard, he stole lineouts, he made big tackles, and he never, ever let us think about folding our tents after the loss to Brooklyn.

I'm sure people who see and know the Skip from outside of rugby probably think to themselves, "Hmmm, a long-haired graphic designer; this guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body." They couldn't be more wrong, the Skip is harder than a coffin nail and a true leader of men. Not the kind of guy that people follow because they are compelled to by rank or law, but the kind of man that other men rally around because he's a force of nature.

O Captain, my Captain; this weekend's win was for you.

It's the Skip's world, we just live in it.

With You,

KJ