Captain's Corner - September 5th 2009

Over the summer we have seen a wave of fresh, young talent join the first team squad and to help unite the old and new players our social committee organised a day of paintball warfare. It was a great day and the team bonded well, the highlight was watching Stanners running naked through the forest getting peppered by paint - the majority of which was fired from his own team!

Our warm up games have gone well and given us much to work on. Whilst the results show: won 1, lost 2, I wouldn't read too much into that. Our game against Lille would have gone on until midnight to ensure that they won the game, had their resident ref sent anymore of our players off the game would have been forfeited! Moseley however was a true test of where we are. We played against a quality, championship side and we learnt a couple of harsh lessons; if we make mistakes in this league, they will be punished. I'm pretty confident the memory of them running in a try from under their posts to snatch a win at the death won't be forgotten in a hurry. That said, our backline looked razor sharp and our forwards were very physical going forward.

Today sees us welcome Sedgley Park for our first encounter in National 1. Playing one of the favourites to take the league title first means we are fully prepared for a brutal 80 minutes of rugby. Whilst we may be underdogs for once, we haven't prepared to come second this afternoon.