Club Dinner and AGM

Hi All,
Just a reminder that the club dinner is a week on Friday - May 11th at Niagara, 7:30pm for a prompt sit down to eat at 8pm.

Anyone still not been in touch but would like to attend, it's £26 to include full dinner, MC and comedian on the night. Get in touch with any committee member or Mitch to ensure your place at this years glittering event.

AGM - This years AGM may be the most important meeting the club has had. The main agenda item being whether or not we continue as a rugby club next season.
If you do not attend this meeting, you cannot moan and groan about any decision made by those who do make an effort and turn up.

Date - Wednesday May 16th
Place - Gas Club
Time - 7pm sharp

Hope to see lots at the dinner and also at the AGM. Remember, it's a club that belongs to all of us!!!

Knaresborough 29 - 10 Oaks

Despite the unflattering scoreline, this was one of the best team displays of the season so far. We had a scratch team with lots of people playing out of position, a new scrum half and centre from uni (thanks Tim and Nick), only 1 prop etc.....

To be fair, the pitch was very poor, resembling a ploughed field and they knew how to use it their advantage. Despite the scoreline this was a pretty evenly matched game and we should have had more scores than we did. All the players playing out of position did well, and special mention to Chick who coped admirably playing tight head and Darren who brought his own interpretation of fly half play to the game.

All in all a very spirited and competent display for which Nick was justifiably made man of the match.

Oaks 10 - 3 Corinthians

A WIN !!!!

And a very deserved one at that. We dominated this game virtually from start to finish and should have won by a much greater margin to be fair. Up front, the scrums were rock solid and our lineouts went well all day. The only try of the game was a great forwards try, Selly scoring after a period of prolonged pressure on their line.

We had 2 new No.10's on show - Tom for 20 minutes til he did his hamstring, then Darren deputising very ably for the remainder of the game. Gowt boy Frets came on and didn't moan too much.....
Special thanks to Sodje for getting binned - TWICE. I'm not sure if there is a law telling you where to stand, but I'm not a referree?!?

We have Knaresborough again next week at their place. Let's get a bus up if we can and have a good win and a good night out. We need as strong a team as possible to continue our push for promotion......

Oaks 10 - 10 Knaresborough

The best team performance of the last few weeks gained us a point at home. We had a lot more desire than we've shown for a while which resulted in us really having the upper hand for most of the game. A dodgy decision by the ref gave them a try when the ball was clearly not grounded - difficult to ground a ball through Mark Aston you wolud imagine.....but the ref thought differently. Our defence was outstanding throughout the game and we were camped on our line for periods with what seemed like endless 5 metre scrums. They had nothing to show for these periods of pressure though, and we were able to work our way back up field and turn defence into attack.
The urgency and want to win attitude we displayed here should be built on for all remaining games to ensure a good 2nd half to the season. We have Leeds Corinthians on Sturday at home and are then away to Knaresborough the week after so lets keep this spirit going.

Mosborough Game 13/1/07

Mosborough 16 - 14 Oaks

A game we should have won easily would seem to be the consensus amongst players and supporters.....but one which we lost with difficulty.

We dominated the game for long periods, and were only ever behind very early and very late in the game. We should have won this match with ease, but one factor made this very difficult.....

The main difficulty being the appalling "referee(?)" who's like I have never seen before!!
He seemed to have invented new rules that no-one either on or off the pitch was aware of. He rarely enforced the wheeling scrum rule - allowing Mosborough to peel off the back of the scrum after turning 180 degrees and run virtually unchallenged the full length of the pitch due to our forwards being on the otherside!!! He continually pinged us for crooked lineouts when theirs seemed to go unnoticed - although it was a very strong wind we were playing in. He failed to understand and enforce the new scrummage engagement rule which left us all wondering what the point of ot was. We were gifted a penalty try which warranted only a penalty and a sin binning of their player for continued killing of the ball in the ruck. However the most heinious decision of all was to give them a penalty with 2 minutes remaining in front of the posts. We were initially penalised for a handling infringement giving Mosborough the penalty, the "ref" then sin binned one of their players for a more serious offence after this decision - but refused to reverse the penalty as it should have been according to any rule book you care to read. The score at this time was 14 - 13 to Oaks, the resulting penalty kick from their admitedly good kicker gave them an ill deserved victory. If this result has any bearing on the survival of Oaks in this division I only hope we don't ever have the same "ref" again....!!!

That said, it was Sheffield Oaks who conspired to lose a very winnable game of rugby, regardless of the refereeing decisions. We really need to win all our remaining home games to try and keep up in this division.

Oaks 3 - 6 Otliensians

This turned out to be a much closer affair than anyone was probably expecting looking at current form and league position etc. We were good in patches and so were they, kicks being the only seperating factor really. Nice to have people back from injury, but we really need to get some wins on the board in the new year to ensure we stay in the division. The Mosborough game will be vital (Mods postponed last weekend) for survival as we should beat these everytime we play them. Lets have a good turnout and a good performance this Saturday so I have something positive to write next week........

Training

Further to Bonzo's message of hope, I have found exclusive footage of his latest training regime. Click on link below, but make sure you've not just eaten.....

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=507732229697832036

Looks like whatever he does he keeps his racing snake figure......nuff respect!!

I've also stumbled across some new warm up stretches we may want to try?

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-247678787152630030

Go on, I bet you can if you try.....