Deeside 1st XV Vrs Aberdeenshire 1st XV

‘I Deeside how I live, I Deeside who I love’ – Lindsay Lohan
From her 2004 hit from the Princess Diaries II

Deeside 1st XV Vrs Aberdeenshire 1st XV
By Jonny Gray

With last week’s win now in the annals of history Charlie’s Lads now had to contend with the young guns from West of Aberdeen, Deeside. They arrived with a team full of youth and ‘funcy’ haircuts. In the dressing room, the coo (Lewis Emslie) applied factory 50 sun cream to his then naked body, the music in that said dressing room was awful( I don’t know who picked it but if you are reading this just put on better stuff thanks)
The players were early on to the pitch, partly to work on tactics but more accurately to take in the last few rays of the Aberdeen sun before it hibernates till post March 2022. The intelligent players numbered 1-8, worked on lineout and scrums until, Charlie wandered over with a face that only said one thing- ‘they only want uncontested scrums’. Shane Lafferty was inconsolable, “what is my purpose” he screamed into the heavens, scaring a murmur of starlings from a nearby tree, where it was later assumed they were resting to continue their flight south to mainland Europe to winter.
With jerseys on and kick off nearing the captain Connor Macfarlane spoke that it may be a training exercise but they needed to show Charlie what is standard Aberdeenshire performance. The game started with a lot of pressure being administered by the shire pack running hard at defenders and securing good 3rd and 4th phase ball to see the gaps open up in defence. Jamie Stephen cruised over for a well worked Shire try. The play resumed and was played at a similar way for the next 20 minutes shire showing some great dominance in both the backs and forward play. No 11 Mackerel Micmoogulash also got on the end of some lovely shire play to get in for his first try of the season, Shane Lafferty also got over for his first shire try, I mean that’s pretty good he has only played like 40 games for the last 3 years. Shire applied more pressure with the use of their set piece. In one case a driving lineout was secured by MacFarlane. The Deeside players wisely or unwisely decided not to contest the maul. Leaving Connor just to fall over the line to get on the end of his forth try of the season.
Deeside started to make in-roads into the shire defence with some well-placed kicking keeping Shire pinned back in their own 22 and causing havoc to the shire back field. This pressure and a perfectly weighted kick allowed the Deeside winger to touch down for their first of the day. Deeside got another one in quick succession with some excellent play and shires players tiring from too much defending.
More discerning sports fans will have marvelled at the return of the real prodigal son LC8 from the dark side. With the applause/jeers of the crowd, LC8 worked his magic and marked the perfect return with a beautiful try. After scoring he did his now patented ‘can I have some water now, please’ celebration

Half Time 36-12

In the second half changes were made to the front row and the backrow was swapped around. Shire scored a number of quick tries with Paul harrow and the Gravy getting a bit of meat to get shire back on track. Luke Bain came close to scoring his second try of the year. After taking a great line off Jamie Stephen he broke through the Deeside defence by dipping the shoulder guiding a Deeside player to the ground in a controlled manner, with all the whooping and hollering he forgot the ball it was knocked on. With the heat now posing a bigger danger to the elder statesmen at the club then COVIDSARS 19 did in march 2020. Charlie hauled Rugby Baz ashore to be cocooned far from the now relentless star, only 150.87 million kms away. He was immediately made put on a hat and more factor 50.
With the shire men tiring and not concentrating they leaked a further 2 tries. The loss of their bold Captain MacFarlane scrum half Paul Harrow took over and had some stern words with the shire men. That they needed to pick up their effort around the pitch. With this said the men collected themselves and managed to finish with a couple of tries. To the jubilation of the crowd, the last one crossing was the returning colts man Liam Smith.

Final score 58-24

A lot to work on before Shire travel to Banff RFC to play their first game of the season on the 4th of September. A bigger performance will be necessary to cement Shire as one of the contenders for the Caledonia League 2 title. Man of the match was Shane Lafferty and Luke Bain got dick of the day for not remembering the ball is needed to score a try.