After beating them down in the Bay, the boys went into the game confident.

Sadly though the evening didn’t go according to plan.

Batemans Bay came with the bare minimum players of 15 and managed to grind out a win, 30-21.

The Goldies started off very sluggish.

Passes weren’t going to hand, balls were being knocked on, the scrum was always under pressure and the lineout was wobbly at times.

There really wasn’t any continuity or structure to the Goldies’ game.

We were missing some of our big name players, most notably Brad Rose who is still recovering from a shoulder injury that he has been carrying since the birth of Jesus Christ.

Also missing was our huge second row/back row Justin Fleming who has been very sick with a head cold for the past months and the coaching staff decided to give him a week off.

I had the pleasure of running the touchline with Justin.

When the Bay went in for their second try early on in the game, Justin said to me under the posts, “Bloody hell Irish Flem, this team is nothing without me, they can’t run, they can’t pass, they can’t scrum, Christ I will have to put the boots on at half time and bring it home… sigh”. 

Justin didn’t do any of the above!

Batemans Bay managed to catch their own kick off to the second half and score a try.

Don’t ask me why, how or who scored because I didn’t actually see it as I was polishing off a “Gober Special Sandwich” (god they are good. If you haven’t tried one I strongly recommend you get to the next home game and get your laughing gear around a few). 

This really set the tone for the second half.

The Goldies never put their stamp on the game.

They really never caught a break and Brendan McGrath being sin binned didn’t help as he was having an excellent game, giving the back of the scrum with some really good service but also making a truck load of tackles.

Also with the injury to Cocko in the front row and no front row subs on the bench, we had to call upon the old faithful front rower Danny McGrath.

He ended up playing all the second half bar ten minutes that he spent in the bin for causing a huge all in punch up during a scrum.

Danny knocked out his opposing prop with a roundhouse kick to the back of the head.

He can be pretty damn aggressive old Danny Boy.

All in all it really wasn’t a good day for the boys and the basics really let them down.

The most pleasing aspect of the evening was the debut of Toby McGrath in the second row.

A very solid game for such a young guy in the Gold jersey.

Toby’s dad Tim aka Dancer played over 100 games at prop for the Goldies in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Even at this early stage it’s evident Toby will be a much better tackler and scrummager than his old man.

This week’s points went to:

This week’s chicks’ pick caused huge arguments, numerous counting of the vote and one person could not be chosen so it had to be split three ways and it went to three people - Toby McGrath, Mully and Bill Abbey.

This weekend the boys play Yass in Yass.

Try your hardest to get across as half time entertainment and beers will be provided by Mumbles, Matty Corkhill and Tommy Kelly.