7th July 2007
Brit Cup time again!
by "Grubby" Grubb and Jono "Rangefinder" Wright

The day started, late as usual for Ads, with the other members all managing to congregate at the station car park, on time! Dad had worked tirelessly to provide extra members to the squad, and we met a few recruits at the train station, on time!

It was at this point that Mum started panicking as it was thought, by Ads, that we lacked space in the cars, although he had failed to ask our new recruits how they planned to get to London and how they had arrived in Reading. ‘Trig’ did at one point offer his Tom Tom as a method of navigation and this still did not register in Mum’s head. She must have assumed that the train driver had borrowed this for the journey to Reading.

At this point, ‘Range Finder’ Wright travelled back home to retrieve his car for the journey. Whilst this manoeuvre was being implemented, in Mum’s eyes essential journey, it was established in the car park that the Southampton recruits had in fact brought a Tom Tom as they’d also brought a car! This waste of time and effort not only meant a delay in departure by approximately an hour but also meant two cars to carry four people there!

We arrived to the ground just in time, played some Aussie Rules, and then drove home! Seriously though…

We were drawn in, as described on the BARFL website, ‘The Group of Death’ alongside Putney Magpies and Sussex Swans. After much confusion, we lined up against a Sussex team that we had easily turned over twice earlier in the season. We played against the wind and up the hill in the first half resulting in us conceding a few behinds. With the wind behind us and the team starting to gel a complete domination was enjoyed in the second half where Reading were the only team to score. A goal and two behinds from Grubber resulted in a narrow Reading victory by a couple of points.

The schedule then took a turn for the worst and we had to wait around 2 hours for our next test on the pitch against Putney.

The game was a decider to the ‘Group of Death’, as Putney had earlier beaten the Swans in the other fixture in the group. Performances of notes came from Colly and Sam, both tackling both distance and wind to score superb goals. The defence then stood strong against a very aggressive and experienced Magpies side, but we held strong to top the group and set up a semi final against Nottingham.

The scheduling of the day was definitely not on the Roos side. After a two hour wait between the first two games a mere ten minute breather was all that we had between the Magpies and the Scorpions.

Despite the pain it would cause to Roos past and present, near and far, the lads were unable to cope with a fast moving Scorpion pack in the semi-final. A man down after an injury to Ian forced him to sit down again, Jules hobbled into the fray, after promising to stand on the goal line and not move. With a very mobile squad, the Scorpions racked up a couple of goals and a few behinds and won comfortably against a tired Kangaroo's squad.

Squad: Ads, Will, Grubber, Jon, Ian (minus 1 foot), JUles (minus 1 leg), Trigger (ST), Toddy (ST), Paul (WH), Gav (NLL), Paul, Sam (I know I've missed someone....)