Sundays Doddering

Sunday was a great day for Doddering….
The weather was great…we had a new junior member…and the Rick Flick is gaining in popularity…

Your Captain was up and ready by six o’clock – mostly because he couldn’t sleep but also in anticipation of a mornings Dodderery. Normally he would have had ‘more than a few’ the night before which helps with the usual lie-in until seven, but with an hour or so to burn and having serviced the wife with a cup of tea, still managed to be around 5 minutes late for kickoff…

Upon arrival – a new junior member – Dan – ‘Son of Simon’ was present and ready to go!
But wait a fully ready to go new member – with speed, agility and his fathers ability to jump into a high pass!  At one point he out ran Dan – ‘The Ferret’  to score a try – excellent – more please!

In last weeks’ blog we mentioned the ‘Rick Flick’ as demonstrated by Rich (who this week was the spy in the camp for forthcoming Dodderers vs. Old ruckers match). The Rick Flick seems to be catching on with a number of successful attempts to launch a ball in the wrong direction. This is truly in the spirit of Dodderering … Well done Rich!

Kiwi was just not in best form this week…he did manage to demonstrate the turn of speed we all expect from him, but unfortunatley most of the time he was rooted to the spot. Normally we see this behaviour from fellow Dodderers in the first few weeks’ of morning sun where everyone seems to be in slow motion (including your Captain) but by now this should have passed. In true Doddering fashon this is entirely acceptable if as we suspect, Kiwi was putting a few away the night before!

Following the usual four team Tournament we had a Big game with eight a side so plenty of people were staying on. Following the big game we had Dodderers extra with four a side where we played best of 5 as by then we were definately low on energy.

Your Captain is unfortunately unable to attend next Sundays’ match as a couple of tickets to the British Grand Prix fell into his lap yesterday…and as this is probably going be the last at Silverstone and having not been before your Captain has relunctantly decided to pass on Doddering this Sunday. Open invitation for a new Blogger….

Roll on Thursday when we beat the Old Ruckers on their home turf and begin to reclaim the ‘Bit of Stick’ !

Dodderers part company with Ryan

Dodderers director of rugby Dean Ryan has left the club by mutual consent. The former England number eight spent seven years at Magpies, after moving from his previous coaching role at Bristol in 2002. Dodderers President Foz  told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: “He just never turned up for the Sunday morning runout, plus when we heard he hadn’t arranged a team for the forthcoming Old Ruckers match that was the final straw” Ryan, 42, still had three years left on his contract but his future had looked doubtful after the club’s President announced his end-of-season review.

Nat joins the Hall of Flame

Congratulations to Nat on his well deserved entry into the Hall of Flame.

Nat on Boxing Day

Nats’ performance on the pitch has really improved over the past year. His tireless effort and boundless energy are an inspiration and constant reminder to fellow Dodderers of bygone years.

Following Nats’ boundless try scoring this week, we had a discussion on exactly when Nat became better than his Dad.

After our consultation of the handicapping chart we decided that Nat finally made the grade when he was awarded man of the match at last years Doddering bowl tournament.

Rise of the Juniors

Here at the Dodderers we are fortunate to have a number of junior Dodderers who are willing to serve a long and fruitful apprenticeship. In the past few weekends they have arrived (perhaps cajoled by their Doddering dad) and persistently run rings around us.

Last week was no exception and following the arrival of Jordan and Nat, they begun to run rings around us. Both Jordan and Nat were on very good form performing the usual run around and dodges through the line…

Soon it became apparent that Nat was in flaming good form and on numerous occasions managed to out run most of the more experienced players and continually forge routes through the defenses of the opposing team….

Nick certainly couldn’t keep up with Nat and by then end of the morning had taken some time out to take a rest. Nat was going from strength to strength and by the end of the morning had scored well over seven great looking tries.

Rich was on best reverse one armed passing this week managing to make a number of fantastically long passes…only problem they were mostly in the wrong direction and nowhere near an awaiting Dodderer. Even the Foz managed his own homage to the “Rick Flick” also manging to land the ball somewhere behind the defending lines.

As this weekend approaches I am already looking forward to our match on Sunday.

Dodderers go dragon boat racing

Sunday was not the best weather ever, those of you that managed the usual Sunday morning session were greeted with cold weather and plenty of rain. At some points the rain was falling so hard and fast that your Captain couldn’t see anything and was unable to catch any passes. So no change there then!

There were some glimmers in-between the rain drops and spirited performances from many Dodderers… Try of the Day goes to the President – Captain combination for an excellent fast pass from the Captain to the Foz who was able to beat the opposition on the outside!

On to the Dragon Boat racing…this was our very first attempt at entering a crew for the Gloucester Dragon Boat Regatta.
Immediately following arrival we assembled (with our bandannas) for a team photo under the Dodderers flag. This would be the very last time we would look dry…

Dry Dodderers

But wait … we’re missing some of the team…Oh  No! … Barney and his first mate have bailed out…
….mmm perhaps a rename to Blarney… was it too cold?
Luckily Foz collared Andy who had come to watch, and a passer by (Jen)  for the first race….

Felix also came to the rescue dropping everything to be with us for the remainder of the races….

Felix pleased to be in the crew

After we won all of our heats we were into one of the semi-finals..

Dodderers mexican wave

…we showed our approval with a Mexican wave!

Into the semis your Captain shows Foz he has a curved one…
…and in case he forgets, Andy has prepared his order for Peking Duck by painting it on his paddle!

Captain shows Foz he has a curved one!

In the end it was close…the final went right to the line…we were beaten by a mere 0.3 seconds by a more experienced  team, but we certainly had the upper hand when it came to team spirit and supporters!

We did win the best dressed team…winning a trophy…but unfortunately your Captain was not up to scratch when it came to receiving the prize…

Foz Simo and Captain receive pricze for best dressed team...spot anything wrong?

For a complete account of the Dragon Boat race follow the link to the  Dodderers website http://www.dodderers.co.uk/dragonboating.html

Many thanks to everyone who participated including the Dods supporters who endured the cold and rain to cheer us on!

Special thanks to Hannah who was very cold most of the time on the drum

Special thanks to Hannah our Drummer!

Its in my diary for next year already…surely not one to miss…not even if your name is Blarney!

…and finally how to do it really well… follow the link to the National Indonesian Dragon Boat Training video. Watch out for the acceleration training 3/4 way through !!

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/459573/2539444

Making the rules count

This weekends Dodderery was a bit of an eye opener. Your Captain has been pondering something that happened during the Big Game we had at the end of the usual mini league.

For some reason – we appointed a number of Referees, who enforced the rules to a level we are not used to. Your captain has noticed in the past that many fellow Dodderers are not too keen on the ‘big game’ we sometimes have at the end of our session due to not actually getting the ball, or feeling that the game is poor (which is code for “I didn’t get the ball”).
Our big game with a referee and eight-a-side really opened up because of the enforcement of 10yds at kickoff (and infringements) and 5 yards for a rollback. Gone were the cries of pass the ball, and this isn’t much fun….to be replaced with some fantastic Rugby, spirited run throughs and some all round good play.

So from now on to get the most out of our Sundays’ we should all work hard to enforce the rules even when we don’t have a referee…

Special mentions this week:-

George deserves two mentions this week: Firstly George always throws himself into tackles with real conviction but this week was an exception – he was obviously suffering from excess energy as he threw himself into some amazing diving touches onto a fairly hard pitch. Secondly George made an equally amazing quadruple dummy to score past two opponents. Interestingly the last two dummy were not actually required but looked great.

Toby was on fighting from with amazing energy and excellent play.
Felix for just turning up, and scoring the winning try in the ‘Big Game’ at the end.

If any Dodderers fancy a mid week run-out then the Thursday evening sessions have begun at 7.00pm. Your Captain has noticed an immediate improvement in his fitness having increased his workouts from by 100% from one to two a week!

See you Sunday!

Treasurers’ new nickname adopted!

Barney Rubble

 

We’ve been looking for an appropriate name for our Treasurer (Nigel) for some time now…..

….well the wait is now over!

 

Barney seems a fitting name as his feet move as fast as Barney Rubbles’, plus he doesn’t mind a bit of a Barney either!

 

Seen here at the Presidents’ Trophy match last week – Barney stops play to ask a question….

Are we playing full width?

(All Nigels’ tags have been transferred to Barney in the Captains’ most mentioned Tag Cloud)

This Weekends’ Dodderery

Following such an excellent Doddering event last week was always going to be hard – but we did it!

Our President Foz was on excellent form and was showing no signs of letting up. With some excellent turns and moves, he managed to put a few away!
Great shows of skill from Toby,  Fridge, Timmy, and Kiwi, Although Kiwi, was heard ‘challenging himself’ on a number of occasions where a pass was dropped or missed entirely.
Now the weather’s finally looking up we are also getting a good turnout for Dodderers Extra following the 9am exodus. This week your Captain needed a little snooze whilst watching the London Marathon following his exertions in the morning!

Postman Pat had a few grumbles to make about the standard of the pitch marking….it was looking a little like the pitch meister had ‘had more than a few’ before he marked the final line out.

Dodgy pitch marking...

(if you look really carefully at this satellite image of the Magpies you can see where the line originally was!)

Actually whilst we are talking about Pat – the one armed passes are beginning to fail him. Your Captain set Pat a challenge to get into the Hall of Flame by completing 20 long one hand passes – things are not looking to good right now!