|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Archive - Millwall Match ReportsSeason 1998 / 1999Click on any one of the links below to view the match report, then use the <top> link (at the end of every report) to return here. Warning: These reports are not official. In most cases they were written by players or spectators and no attempt has been made to check the accuracy of the reports, let alone to remove the swear words! Ilford Wanderers 14th September 1998
MILLWALL VS ILFORD WANDERERS - 14TH SEPTEMBER 1998 Ilford Wanderers 24 Vs Millwall Albion 12 The Front Line I can't remember the first, except that they had an overlap. The second came from a scrum about ten yards out. What was probably Intended as a back row move ended up as a number of fumbles which all went backwards. All our cover had read the situation and gone where the ball was meant to be and their bloke wandered through the resulting hole to touch down. Bastard. The rest of the half returned to relative parity, punctuated by four important events. 1. Crispin took a pearler on the hooter from one of their props miles away from play. BWTW didn't see iIt (funny that!) but did issue their captain with a team warning. (note A) 2+3. We missed two penalties. 4. Rupert scored. Typical Moreton really, wandering over at no more than a gentle saunter with most of their back division hanging off of him. Truman remembered how to kick. Half Time: llford 14 v Millwall 7 The start of the second half was probably the best passage of play Millwall has ever put together. Terry took the kick off and presented the ball, other forwards bound on to him and the ball, still in view, was fed to Dale he took on his man and popped the pass to Truman out of the tackle leading to the backs first real run of the game. Quick hands saw the ball to the end of the line where Rhys took the tackle. We got to the break down first, secured the ball a quickly broke blind. More slick handling involving Rhys, Tim, McI and almost certainly others took us deep into their half and again ball was secured at the break down. The speed and direction of the break had lost most of their forwards and sucked in most of their backs. A couple of passes later and Sean was in unopposed, with Scouse on hand in case he fell over! It felt and must have looked brilliant, and if we can put together concerted passages of play like this better teams than this will have trouble holding us. Sadly Truman missed the kick. Even more sadly we never looked like repeating it. If anything that was the signal for the wheels to come off. Without ever looking in real danger from them we proceeded to shoot ourselves iIn the collective foot. For the last few weeks we've been trying to work on quick, clean possession and feeding the backs. What followed was disappointing to say the least. Seemingly endless rolling mauls with no real chance of getting the ball out were the best of it. On occasions the ball was set and then promptly lost, most memorably inside their 25, when the forwards had gained good ground, the ball was set, and a late arriving boot kicked it straight through the nick and out on their side! When the backs did get a run, we either ran out of space by not running straight, or continued to kick away possession. (Which alarming trend even spread to the front row). Enough whining. Most of the second half was much as the first, again
with two turning points. From a quick penalty Truman kicked us deep into
their half. A touch too deep as it turns out, as the ball ran over the
try line. A 25 drop out! hear you cry. No chance. BWTW has seen a different
video to us , and brings them back for a scrum inside our half, which
with the aid of a shocking bounce, they promptly scored from. From 2 to
10 points down because some muppet doesn't know what he's doing! The second
event followed something I missed, but resulted in BWTW giving their prop
another stern talking to. Remember note A? Surely he ha to go? Fat chance..
the game limped to a close with them landing one more penalty to make
the final score, llford 24 v Millwall 12. Strangely the journey home was
much quicker! MILLWALL 1ST XV V MISTLEY - 19TH SEPTEMBER 1998 Millwall Albion v Mistley 37-10 The Front Line Gareth, as is his wont, continues to talk up the opposition to an extent that you'd think we were in the second division. Obviously there's hardly any room for complacency, but we're not sado-masochists. Or at least I don't think so. Whatever, we ran in six tries. Although it was a day for kickers, there wasn't a breath of wind in sight, not unless you count Gareth's emissions in the scrum, purely down to his exertions you understand. Neither Phil nor Paul managed to put more than 3 of their kicks over. Someone slipped over a drop kick near the end. Flash Bastard. Surprisingly, on a day when more than one try was scored, Phil missed out, with the honours going to Andy Barrow, Ben Szyczak, Paul O'Dowd and Rupert. The latter getting three. Needless to say the win was ruthlessly celebrated in the bar afterwards, I hope that Alan and Darrell have learnt that particular lesson. This means that we now have to play another cup match. That means that we are now embarking on Millwall' s longest ever cup run. The next tie is against Haverhill on 7th October. There will be a coach. Be there or be square. MILLWALL LLAMAS VS HAMPSTEAD IV'S - 19TH SEPTEMBER 1998 Millwall Albion v Hampstead IV 5 - 34 Second Helpings 1. Connan Hill It was Kevin 'Footloose' Bulmer's first game for Millwall and I will bet money that if we hadn't had such a good crack in 'The Pier' that night, we'd never have seen him again. Frankly, I was amazed that any of us got there at all. But you can bank on these springboks, they're safer than the Bank of England. It was one of them that got our try, Alan, quite a snatch. I'd like to say it was a good team effort, but it wasn't. It was pure opportunism. The match was categorised by good individual performances, most of which were in the pack, where even with six we only lost one against the head. Due to unforseen circumstances, to whit, Barry O'Neill ringing me up and asking me if I fancy a beer. I shall cut this short. Suffice to say, this was not Millwall's proudest hour, but I can assure you, it wasn't our most craven either. MILLWALL 1ST XV VS BRAINTREE III'S - 26TH SEPTEMBER 1998 Millwall Albion v Braintree III 30-27 The Front Line Anyway, of course not everything went swimmingly, Andy Barrow and Coach conspiring to turn up late and forcing those brave old souls in the seconds to start with 11 (see 2nd team match report for the effect that had on them). No-one told me anything about the first half, other than the existence of the two extremes of courage, Kev Bulmer playing with a broken toe, (loony!), and Adam Tully going off after breaking his fingernail or something, I don't know, I wasn't there. Anyway, having watched the match for the last few minutes, I can say that the last, and winning try, that came in the last few minutes, was an absolute beauty. Jim Kenworthy rounded it off, but the drive, as I understand the Americans call it, began way back and the build up saw us hold onto the ball for at least seventeen phases, or was it 5? Either way it was more than 1. Well done lads, anyone who had watched the Upper Clapton game would have recognised a huge improvement. The other spoils were divided up by Paul Ryan, Phil Antenbring and Kevin Bulmer. Incidentally, does anyone know how, when and where Chris Miller came from? MILLWALL LLAMAS VS BRAINTREE V'S - 26TH SEPTEMBER 1998 Millwall Albion v Braintree V 74 - 10 Second Helpings The subsequent performance by the Millwall team, albeit augmented by a couple of Braintree players, No that's not true! Albeit augmented by a Braintree player and someone else who could do with brains growing on trees. To elucidate, at half-time, only one of them had the sense to decline the chance to return to their preferred team. I know I started this paragraph intending to talk about the performance but it's too late now, I'll do it in the next one. The subsequent performance by the Millwall team, albeit augmented by a couple. . .oh shit, I'll try again. The subsequent performance by the Millwall team demonstrated, exactly, the triumph of quality over quantity. Either that or everyone played a blinder, to try to get into the first team, so they don't go out having to play three positions at once. It took five minutes to realise that they had one attacking option. His name was Charlie, and to be fair, he was a big lad, for his size, and surprisingly quick. Unfortunately, despite it taking 5 or 6 of us to slow him down, there were never any of his players nearby to pick up the loose ball. And he couldn't tackle. Or I didn't notice it if he could. Now I come to think of it, did anyone notice any of them tackling. It was a riot. I'm happy to report that we shut them out during the first half, whilst we put 6 or 7 past them. The order of these tries may not be exact, but you'll soon get the drift. Our pack won the ball at a line out, it was fed out to the backs, Mark broke a tackle and drew Charlie Boy (I have no doubt that that's what they call him), Mark then fed Flex, who shipped it onto Pip who then ran pretty much where he wanted until he reached the try line. Our pack won the ball at a scrum, it was fed out to the backs, Mark broke a tackle and drew Charlie Boy (I have no doubt that that's what they call him), Mark then fed Flex, who shipped it on to Pip who then ran pretty much where he wanted until he reached the try line. Our pack won the ball at a ruck, it was fed out to the backs, Mark broke a tackle and drew Charlie Boy (I have no doubt that that's what they call him), Mark then fed Flex, who shipped it on to Pip who then ran pretty much where he wanted until he reached the try line. This will get boring. Darren got one by picking up at the base of a ruck and barrelling his way over. While I'm thinking about it Andy, Kevin Bulmer's mate, had a blinder with his kicking and two absolute peaches of tackles. Mike got on the score sheet twice, but I can only remember one, cos I was the bloke that fed him from a quick (ish) penalty. Frankly it wouldn't have mattered how long we'd given them, they'd still never have stopped him. Pip got another two and that was pretty much it for the first half. Oh! I mustn't forget Craig's break, and that has absolutely nothing to do with him standing behind me and reminding me about it. He's gone now, so I'd just like to point out that he has still failed to score for us, even Paul Ryan's managed it! Anyway, I think it was eight in the first half. So where did the wheels fall off I hear you cry. It had been reasonably equal player wise, although they'd had one more than us, until the aftermath of Darren's try. Turning back to trot to the halfway line, we witnessed a scene of absolute carnage, there were bodies everywhere, each wearing a black and gold shirt. It was clear that the forward charge inspired by Mike Duncan breaking blind had lain waste to Braintree's pack. The upshot was, and I still don't know how this happened, we gave one back at halftime, and ended up with us, I swear, playing 12 against 14 until Jamie McKillop turned up. It took them scoring two tries to wake us up, one of which I'm not even going to talk about, and the other was quite good actually. We replied in kind, and as all good guests, with a double measure. Flex got one to re-ignite the charge, let's face it if he can get one anyone can. Our Braintree stalwart vindicated his wise decision. Tim “the new bloke at scrum half” tumbled over twice, but only once officially. Mark Dempsey stepped in with one, but that was in the first half so swap one of Pip's round if you must. I think that that just about covers it. If only we could actually get 15 out, our second team is going to be pretty damn good. MILLWALL 1ST XV VS OLD BEALONIANS - 3RD OCTOBER 1998 No report available MILLWALL LLAMAS VS GUYS HOSPITAL III'S - 3RD OCTOBER 1998 Millwall Albion v Guys Hospital III 21 - 5 Second Helpings
Guy's kicked off the match and they kicked off the scoring. I think it's fair to say that they lived to regret that. Their first try had nothing to do with the ref. going off and their coach coming on to ref. Three cheers to that man. I don't think any of us would have been capable of doing that. Anyway, after Guy's try, Millwall played ten minutes of absolutely sublime rugby resulting in a try for Kevin Bulmer, but the input of Dave Higgins and Steve Harford were crucial. It was a series of four or five quick rucks in succession. Not very enjoyable for the opposition. Unfortunately, we never achieved those giddy heights again. Obviously this was entirely down to Flex propping. Which reminds me. The positional changes involved will almost certainly go down in history. There were at least three players who ended up playing in three different position. The advent of uncontested scrums led to a great many players who aren't any good ending up in the tight five, with apologies to Graham, Neil and Richard. Anyway, once Kevin had gone over, it was obvious that Dave Higgins in the centres wasn't going to let that bulldozing run of Kevin ' s upstage him. Don't ask me how we got there but we had a scrum in the top left hand corner, which, due entirely to Graham's hooking, we won. As long as n0-0ne dropped the ball (which, to be honest, was an even chance) we were always gong to get over. Alan fed Kevin who fed Dave who ran through about 10 of them in a successful attempt to impress his watching girlfriend. Soon after, Guy's won a penalty. They decided to kick, jesus. I can tell you from a personal viewpoint that at times it felt like we were playing against a team with Rob Andrew in it. Their fly-half certainly kept Perry busy. He did have a boot, but that;s about it. It may have taken four or five tackles to slow him down enough to deck him when he did run, but he just couldo't recycle it. The archetypical taking candy off a baby. On to more pleasing matters. Guy's dido't score again, which was entirely due to some good defence and their fly-half giving us the ball back all the time. We did though. It was a lovely move pulled off by three players who hadn't met each other before. Which in itself is pretty impressive. Perry took the glory with a hard run on a hard angle. I'm not even going to think about where their flankers were, unless, of course Perry ran over them, but there weren't any comatose bodies littered about, so Perry only had to beat four defenders, which he did with ease. That had put us 21-5 with Kevin hitting all three of the kicks. Steve Harford went off to rest his weary toe, hamstring, back, wrist and practically everything else. This allowed the reintroduction of Steve Smith. His sheer size means that ifhe had been bom.anywhere other than Victoria, he'd be a rugby player. All he had to do was stand up and sooner or later, the law of averages meant that someone would have to run into him. He was a big bloke, just don't try lifting him in the lineouts. We took our foot off the accelerator at this point, the lineout possession given us by Graham's accurate throwing to Steve and the drive from Brendan dried up somewhat. It was quite clear that not all the pack knew the line out calls. Never mind, the match slowly drifted to its inevitable conclusion. A win for Millwall. It was necessary to put in some hard tackling in defence as Guy's tried to put another man over. It was principally their fly half trying to go over from ten yards, silly boy.generally meant that we got the ball back and took the opportunity to clear over, all the usual suspects had a blinder, Allan again impressed. Graham, Kevin, Steve, Craig and Neil just didn't put a foot wrong. I'd include Perry ifhe hadn't tried to tell us that we weren't pushing in the scrums. Tim and Steve, the new boys are clearly going to be exceptional players, once they've learnt the rules. Likewise Tim, once he's learnt to catch the ball. Richard played a blinder getting every one back to the Pier for some Korsies, or some corsets as my spell check would have it. It is clear that one look at Connan and Graham will tell you that they are far more familiar with Korsies than corsets. Answers on a postcard please. MILLWALL 1XV VS HAVERHILL - 17TH OCTOBER 1998 Millwall v Haverhill 12-12 The Front Line 1. Jamie Rockman Subs: Pete Howard, Stephen Pippard Whilst I acknowledge that there is a touch of magic about the club at the moment we have yet to perfect the art of kit alchemy. Anyway an executive decision was made that the second team had been shafted enough that day (every one of our front row seemed to have taken the same weekend off) and so they would be sent with the clean kit and the ones would make do. This decision turned out to be enlightened when the front five of Millwall donning the sweaty kit got aroused by the pheromones and took on the persona of a heightened sense of awareness (thank tuck for that - most often they give a good impression from 'Day of the Living Dead'). WIth this behind us we had a good warm up and ran through the ever more complicated line out calls. Before the match was even out of its infancy our attention was drawn to the boot of the opposition fly half. The second fly half within a week to demonstrate the demoralising art of kicking us back whence we came. In fact having waxed lyrical about the Zimbabwean the week before it is unfortunately coincidental that the same events began to unfold. Millwall progress manfully up the pitch into the opposition's half - WHACK - Millwall kicked back 40 yards. Millwall progress manfully up the pitch into the opposition's half- SMACK - Millwall kicked back 45 yards. And so on. Now there are in my mind two ways of dealing with a player like this. One don't give him any ball, which due to our awful scrummaging (more later) and our penchant for giving away silly mistakes in promising positions, did not happen on Saturday. Two get the forwards to run at him and draw him into the game and then set Paul Ryan the task of biting his foot off! There has be more of both strategies next time we play this team (i.e.. today), better scrummaging and more controlled play, and getting our back row to run at their back line and force them into making the tackle. Once the tackle has been made hold these players in the ensuing ruck or maul and 'rough them up T a little' (over to Paul} In inevitable Millwall style before the game was a quarter gone we had conceded a try and found ourselves 7 points down. If we can continue to win these games then I don't have a problem with this strategy. but I for one would like to try taking the lead first just to see if this is another method that can be utilised to win games - maybe a bit radical for us just yet!! However, in all seriousness, the try against us fired us up and we played some of the best gusty rugby that I have seen from the club. In the process we scored two of the best team tries the Club has ever scored. The first was a sublime try that saw eight pairs of hands touch the ball before Ben supporting for the second time in the move went over in the comer. Forwards ruck the ball - Alan, Rupert, Jim, Phil, Kevin, Ben, Coops, Ben - Try - lovely stuff. The second try came from a lineout. Paul Ryan caught a beautiful take (he did so all day - yet again this season) and the forwards drove the ball down from the 22 yard line to allow Alan to score. In the process of this move Alan had his hands constantly on the ball directing the maul. When the maul came to a halt a yard from going over the line Kevin Bulmer rang 15 yards from the centres to hit the maul and give it the impetus it needed to go over. One expletive to sum both these tries up - Fucking Brilliant. From this try Jim placed a very nice and as it turned out extremely important kick over for the additional 2 points. The remainder of the match saw us concede two penalties to bring the scores to a nail biting 12 points to 11 in Millwall's favour. The defending from the whole team was superb and the heart with which we played cannot be bettered. Although the opposition missed a drop goal and a certain try I think that we deserved to win this game. As Phil himself recognises he missed 11 additional points and our scrummaging was so bad that after Alan was threatened with a sending off for allegedly feeding the ball we lost almost every ball against the head. That said, the foundation to improve our scrummaging is definitely there, our lineout play is superb, the forwards are getting around the park and our backline as mentioned in the report for last week is second to none. I think that Haverhill will find that we are quite a different proposition this week and I am sure that when we meet them for the return league match the scoreline won't be as close. If you played this match and didn't come off the pitch thinking 'what a game' then you were not working hard enough. I for one thought we played like a gustY team. If we can combine this performance with some individual magic and a strong platform ~m the scrum - God help the opposition. MILLWALL 1XV VS HAVERHILL - 17TH OCTOBER 1998 Walking outside to watch the kick off we realised that it was ABSOLUTELY
FREEZING! The wind was blowing across the pitch towards the clubhouse
therefore we stood on the far side of the pitch in the vain hope it would
be warmer with the wind on our backs. Everything (except the wind) sort of died down for while then. The ball
would get up one end, and then be kicked down the other. The game seemed
to be played for the majority of the time on the clubhouse side of the
pitch. We couldn’t work out if it was because the wind had blown
the team that way or because the referee couldn’t run that far —
he was a big lad. Before half time Haverhill scored again (seven to ten).
They then managed to get a ball over the cross bar and convert (seven
to twelve — damn!). By now, it was very close to half time and hand, nose, ears etc. were
cold. It was time for food so into the clubhouse we trekked. A cup of
tomato soup and/or a bacon sandwich later and we were ready to brave the
elements once again. Sue, bought Nick a Guinness and then we got to watch
the foam flying off the top in slow motion as we walked around the pitch
to deliver it. No doubt about it, the last ten minutes of the match were exciting. The
ball was passed to Ben and he had a great run of about 30 metre~ until
he was tackled on the sideline. Emma was wishing she had gone out ~ith
a golfer. Since Ben started well back in Millwall’s half this unfortunately
didn’t result in a try but it gave us all something to cheer about.
Needing to score, Haverhill put pressure on us. There were moments when
they looked very dangerous with scrums increclbly close to their try line.
A credit to the Millwall defence that they were kept out. With a
final score of twelve all after full time, Millwall had a winning draw.
MILLWALL 1XV VS HAVERHILL - 17TH OCTOBER 1998 THE FRONT LINE To clarify, the second game against Haverhill in a week was the second round cup match of the Tetley Vase competition. To get to the final of this competition means a run out at Twickenham. To win the final means much kudos and cash for the Club. Last year Basildon (only 2 divisions higher) got through to the semi-finals of this competition. With the talent and depth that we have in the Club there is no reason that Millwall cannot win this competition. This is isn’t simply looking at life through rose tinted glasses or wishful thinking this could be reality, but it is up to us. Unlike the week before there were no fu*k ups in the build up to this game. The kits were collected washed from the launderette, the coach turned up and there were two full teams (in fact there were 18 players for the twos and 17 players for the ones). The coach journey to Haverhill went without incident. The warm up to the game progressed well. The whistle went and My God Millwall started playing some lovely rugby from the whistle. Instead of requiring the traditional 15 minutes to get into the idea that we have turned up to play a contact game instead of getting a facial, manicure and pedicure down at Underwood Salon in Poofsville, we actually started playing some blinding rugby. The first Ten minutes saw us camped down in the oppositions 22. We won both lineout and scrummaging, and the tactic of using the backrow to run at their back line worked well. This passage of play culminated in a very nicely taken try from Steve Pip. Chris Miller ran at the opposition’s backline, the forwards nicked the ball, Alan took the ball on and floated a nice pass over to Pip - Try. Now for a piece of invaluable advice - Never say the following words - “We are going to hammer them”. In fact to be safe don’t say any variant or theme of these words, it is not big and it is not clever. The reason why? Well it has been scientifically proven that rugby players have an abundance of Murdochitis. Whilst the game may be watched by the intelligent classes it is unfortunately only played by the intellectually challenged. To this extent rugby players have the unfortunate problem of taking everything that is said at face value and believing it. To illustrate this point, look no further than Neil Meldrum. At some point his lovely girlfriend said that he was sexy. Neil being a rugby player took this statement at face value and believed it. What he should have realised was that she was really saying “You are about as sexy as a man who has been dining on mattress sandwiches with double cream and sprinkly chocolate bits could be, but at least I know that you are unable to go off with someone else!”. Anyway I digress. Having made this fateful prediction we collectively as a team started playing like a bunch of C**ts. There is very little more that I want to point out from the match other than our second try taken beautifully at the lineout and driven over the line by some good forward play, to be scored by Conon (who he? Ed.). This try was converted by Paul ODowd (who he, again? Ed) to level the game at 12 points apiece. We also had a certain try that would have won us the match outright
disallowed, unfortunately I had broken the full backs leg in a tackle
and the game needed to be stopped for safety reasons. Another plus point
was the defence play by the whole team in the extra period. It was outstanding
even though it should not have been necessary if we had played at any
Players worthy of a mention for their play are Alan who got man-of-the-match and beat his opponent in the drinking competition after the game, Conon, Gareth Bately (1 give up! Ed) and Chris Miller. Unlike previous performances this season the forwards clicked better than the back line, but then the conditions were awful. To sum the day up - we won the match being the away team but not on the basis of our performance. If we are to perform well against May and Baker we need to concentrate far harder on the simple jobs that we each have to do to produce a good team effort. The front five need to concentrate on the set pieces, the back row need to concentrate on support play and giving Alan more options and the backline need to get the ball wide and stretch the defence - Simple Stuff. For May and Baker let us revert back to our strategy of fucking up early on, let us hope that the kit is unwashed, that you don’t turn up until 3 minutes before kick off, that the ref is biased against us, that they score one try against us and then we give them a bloody good hiding. We know that May & Baker are not strong rugby playing side, that they only win through intimidation. They came mid table in the league last year. The only team that seems to allow them a chance is Millwall. I would
like to prophesise that we will give M&B a thrashing, but knowing
what I do about rugby players and Murdochitis I will simply say “It
will be an extremely hard game, we cannot relax nor get drawn into mixing
it up with them, we will have to be at our best to win”. Now take
that to heart and react accordingly, oh and by the way remember to forget
your boots! MILLWALL 1ST XV VS MAY & BAKER - 14TH OCTOBER 1998 THE FRONT LINE 1. Connan Hill If you think that I am a bad sport or bitter then you are damn right. I cannot and will not accept that M&B should ever have beaten us in the 3 seasons that we have been running and certainly not this season with our depth of talent in the club. To put the loss into perspective M&B were beaten the week before 30 odd points to 0 by Old Bealonians. Year III, yet we are the only team that M&B have had much success against is us. Well I can tell you that from this point forth their success is going to stop. We have two further games against May & Baker this season in the Essex Shield and the return leg of the league, and I guarantee that we will hammer them in both. The reason that I am sure is simply this: * Traditionally M&B have the strongest pack in the league, but those watching on Saturday will testify that our forwards took them apart. In the line outs, scrums, rucking, mauling and in the loose we were a class or two better. * In past seasons M&B won because they played with more fire and conviction, on Saturday it was us who showed more heart and resolve. We came back from a 13 point deficit that resulted not from their better play or ability but luck on the day. Many teams would have collapsed with everything going against them and Millwall in seasons past would have been the most likely candidate to do so. On Saturday we had a 25 minute spell that simply blew M&B away. If it wasn’t for our bad luck in the final 5 minutes I believe that we would have secured the victory. * Our backline is the best in the division. On Saturday the weather conspired against us and nobody in the back line really got going. Next time we meet it will be different. For these three reasons I am extremely confident of securing convincing
victories for the rest of the season. To be honest although we lost against a poor team, our play was generally good. The only areas of concern were the decision making in the conditions which saw our backline trying to play long floated passes and our set piece penalties (Gareth I have to say it but please give up being the pivot!). However, as I said earlier with our backline, our heart and the pack playing as it did on Saturday woe betide Dagenham in two weeks time. I want to finish with a plea to the whole club. Please take the loss
against May & Baker, and the cock up with the Seconds, as a catalyst
to fire your enthusiasm for Millwall to greater heights. I can ensure
you that both the loss against M&B and the shambles of Second Team
rugby that has occurred in the last 2 weeks will not happen again. Take
the weekend break from competitive rugby to relax if you are going away
or to enjoy the Millwall England (who will surely win!) vs Millwall World
game. But please come back on the weekend of the 7/11 and put 60 points
on Dagenham. MILLWALL 1ST VX VS DAGENHAM - 7TH NOVEMBER 1998 THE FRONT LINE Oh dear, oh my cars and whiskers, whatever shall we do. Gareth will testify to this. Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m., the conversation went something like this: What the fuck do we do Flex? You're asking me? There had been 20 of you available at the time. About 7 of which were overseas players. That meant that, according to our rules, there were only 15 who could play against Dagenham. Could it be that the league loss against May & Baker had knocked the stuffing out of us and that some of you had bottled it. We couldn't tell. In the end we couldn'’t give a shit either. To hell with it, let's go with what we've got. If we don't win then we don't win. It was bloody annoying from my point of view because the second team promotions that had been planned would now look as if they were getting their chance through sheer unavailability. The team then began changing minute by minute. Mark and Connan will testify to this, with the last team being called about ten minutes before kickoff. Oh well, at least we managed to get 16 identical shirts on the pitch. The omens pointed to a convincing Millwall win. And, for once, they weren’t lying. 46-8 in no way represents an accurate picture of the game. It’s difficult to know where to start really. At last, Brennand got a start at his preferred position, I bet he’d forgotten how to pack down. I’ve got a sneaking fee hug that it won’t be the last time he gets a run-out there, his absence from the Pier later might indicate that he knew he had a good game as well. He didn’t win many line outs though did he. Jim knocked over a penalty to put us three points in front and then enter Mr. Tully Hands up all those who thought Adam was that quick. Our first try owes nearly as much to Allan, with his little blind side break, although he was slightly forced into it. I can only assume that Adam was screaming for it because the next thing I knew, he was auditioning for the part in Speedy (Gonzalez. Adam streaked into the corner and touched down for his first try for the club. Seeing as he didn’t buy a jug, to my knowledge, we can only wonder why he didn’t step inside the full-back and give Jim an easier conversion. Nevertheless we were in front, so, strictly speaking we should have finished 12-12 after extra time. (Incidentally, the exact order of the tries is unlikely to be entirely accurate). I’m pretty sure that Rhys got the second, although it could’ve been Jim, after a marvellous move involving all the backs, some of them twice. As Neil Mangeolles so eloquently put it, “it was nice getting up from a scrum and seeing something good happening”, Mark Dempsey’s virtuoso hands put in their first appearance of the day. It was near the touchline again, but this time Jim made no mistake. Gareth definitely got this try but I’m not sure if it was the third. Never mind. It was on the other side of the pitch and, because Gareth got involved a forward melee of some description. I, therefore do not have the slightest idea who to credit with any kind of good work so, well played the pack. Oh before I forget, a word or three about the ref. What a twat. A word or four about Mr. H. What a fucking twat. Now then, either Rhys or Jim got the next one. If you give a shit, cross out one of the names. And it was another excellent backs move. I must confess there’s a lot to be said for having someone who can pass on the wing. It was a simple enou2h loop, but Mark again impressed with his hands under pressure, giving the lucky recipient an easy (ish) canter to the line. ibis one was right on the touchline, (so I think it was Jim), and I’m afraid Jim blotted his copybook again. Half-time was rapidly approaching and before I finish the first segment of this match report I feel duty bound to mention a blood injury, which allowed Jamie on for ten minutes or so. Not a great deal else springs to mind about the first half other than Mark’s plaintive cry for water and Rupert’s tackling in the centre. We didn’t let them cross our line either, most notably when one of their wingers bottled out of taking Rhys on. Very wise of him or her depending on your point of view. In the interests of fairness I should notify you of any Dagenham scores, but frankly, who said life is fair. Before I forget, I’d like to congratulate Steve on his performance in his first game as captain. Before the game, he mentioned in passing that both his hamstrings are fucked, his fingers dislocated, hence the tape. and that his view on trapped nerves was, and I quote ‘trapped nerves are for girls’. I have reached the view that Steve is one of life’s hard men, or (to ensure he doesn’t form an inflated opinion of himself) one of life’s idiots. Whatever, I’m reliably informed that his captaincy throughout was exceptional both before, during and after the match. If anyone is wondering why I said both and then followed it up with three alternatives can keep it to themselves, thank you very much. However, to move Chris Miller to No 8 and himself to No 6 because one
of the second rows had got dog shit on their shorts would undoubtedly
have been an abuse of power, if it hadn’t been so funny. And so
to the second half. Connan made up for dropping the ball in the first half with a 27 man overlap beckoning when he barreled through four or five tackles and then remembered to pass. (A small digression here if you don’t mind. It’s not often that you hear a something 21 stoner tell you that he’s a back rower, we thought that he was laughing. Well folks, let me tell you something, props don't pass. Connan did, maybe there’s some truth in it after all.) Unbelievably it was Neil Meldrum to whom he passed, he must have been having a rest or something, and Neil then took it on and slipped a overhead Netball style pass to Mark, perhaps. who then slipped it on to Jim to put him in for his second. Unfortunately Jim missed this conversion as well, oh well, you can’t have everything. Jim’s performance, unburdened from the shackles of captaincy, was a revelation. Again, he might not think he’s a fly-half, but if he keeps playing like that, tough. I here was one small episode of (lie game that deserves mentioning for it’s sheer irony and to illustrate the size of Mr. H’s kernel of a brain, did I say kernel. I meant to say, atomic sized brain, if it was that big. A scrum on our line won by Dagenham but then ballsed up and about five seconds later Rupert just missed out on a try. Dagenham had been heavily (and I mean that in every sense of the word) by Mr. H for the serum and by the time Rupert had just missed scoring Mr. H was still in our 22. Mr. H’s dad, whilst getting more and more embarrassed, began screaming at tile top his Voice. ‘no-one likes to see that’, referring to us not scoring. Needless to say, old ‘what's his name again’ thought it was the Millwall support ridiculing him for cocking up the scrum. We would have been, but we were too busy laughing. So Mr. H’s dad got abused by his son extremely colourfully. 1 he next event of any note was Connan’s booking. We knew the ref was a prat for heaven’s sake, how any MillwalI player can get booked for stopping a Dagenham player beating up a Dagenham player is a question that the combined might of Einstein, Hawking, and any other genius you might care to mention would struggle to answer. The upshot was a quite incredible travesty’. Dagenham scored. Jesus. I here was nothing for it. as the man said, we need two to cancel that one. F Fiat. I'm happy to report is exactly what happened. Rupert got the first, it was always on the cards, Millwall do not score seven tries without Rupert getting one. It would make his record look bad. it came from a quick penalty. Maybe, and Allan took it and fed a charging Rupert from about seven yards out. Even if you stopped him dead, his reach could still have ensured the try. It was sufficiently close to make Jim’s conversion a formality. I he last try was claimed by Kevin Bulmer. By now both Kevin Doherty and Jamie were on. But that didn’t really
have anything to do with it. Kevin just got the hall about 22 yards out
and jinked his way through three or four imaginary defenders before touching
down in between the posts. Jamie popped the extra points over and a thoroughly
convincing win was MILLWALL 1ST XV VS MAY & BAKER - 16TH DECEMBER 1998 THE FRONT LINE Their big pack took control for most of the first half with Millwall
defending resolutely at every corner. When Millwall did break out, either
Andy broke the world record for the worst ever drop goal attempt or their
fly half booted it half a mile downfield. Following his outrageous dummy against Old Bealonians, Allan sauntered over for another glorious finish. Using Andy Peasey as a dummy, and a ridiculously big dummy at that, he skated over in the corner, but couldn’t make it near enough to the posts to allow the conversion. It was 7-5. The second try was predicted with 100% confidence by Flex, who had half a pint of brandy inside him by now, and I quote “lf we win thissh scrumm we’ll be in” and so it was. Again Andy figured largely in this move, as a dummy again, obviously, he pulled the defence one way, Allan went the other and they were never going to stop Phil from that range. 10-7 to us. Just as we were about to extend our lead the lights went out and so did May and Baker. MILLWALL 1ST XV VS OLD BRENTWOODS - 2ND JANUARY 1999 Millwall Albion v Old Brentwoods 20-12 The Front Line Do not, however, imagine, for one second that I want to start swapping spit in the shower . I can only guess how nice it is to win a fifth round Tetley Bitter Vase match. can only guess how nice it is to play in front of 100+ people who roar congratulations every time you catch the ball, make a tackle or simply fall very gracefully. can only guess how nice it feels to have the Essex committee men wondering aloud why the Essex team has no second rowers when Millwall has two. can only guess how it feels to be spied on by Ravens, in preparation for the Essex President's Shield, who, when questioned 'well, what have you learned ~ , reply, 'that we're going to get hammered.'. Can only guess how it feels to have a banner written about you. Can only
guess how it feels to play a match like that when you've got the flu.
My guess is fucking tremendous. Hope I'm right. Anyway, from the touchline, I have to tell you that after the first scrum, a Millwall win felt inevitable. The dignitaries on the touchline, practically every single rugby player from the Isle of Dogs (the ones not involved with Millwall, that is) were, quite simply, stunned. I'II bet anyone that they're all sitting at home muttering, I wonder how much they pay their players? , I wonder where on earth they've got all their players from ? You could touch the disbelief. I don't know if this makes you feel any better, but I have spent the last 3 and a half years trying to convince Dave Webb, my cousin to come and play for us, because he is a good player. His response has always been the same. You don't playa high enough standard. Fair enough, I hear you cry. Well, apparently, Old Brentwood's do. For heaven's sake we train in a horse paddock. And only once a week to boot. I'm afraid that you're going to have to tell us the answer to this one. Why, in god's name, do we only seem to attract rugby players that you can utterly, I'II say that again, utterly depend on. Apart from Ben, that is, who rang up the night before to find out if he'd been selected. Idiot. It is clear that we are a team with a sparkling future, the continued success of Millwall R.F.C. is guaranteed with our current crop of players, that's for sure, long may that be. There is a magic in the air, a complete fluke, but nevertheless, it is there. You'll be pleased to hear that I've finally arrived at the match. It was a cracker, maybe not to the neutral or the purist. But let me tell you there were no neutral purists there, there weren't even any pure naturalists (sic). Although it would have been nice. I've just had a break for ten minutes caused mainly by Nick giggling at a photograph of Steve Harford (hereinafter referred to as 'The Doonnan ' as in 'The Doctor') in orbit. Let me tell you, you can smell the fear. It reminded me of how much we owe 'The Doonnan'. However, we mustn't let all this press attention go to his head, he's already had to go out and buy a bigger headguard. So having paid tribute to 'The Doonnan' (I hope you've all got the hang of that by now), it's time that I paid tribute to everyone else. You were superb. To coin a phrase from 'The Doonnan', 'if you're not on the list you're not coming in'. Doh! Sorry wrong phrase, 'I've never enjoyed playing rugby so much than with the bunch of lads at Millwall'. I've only played with him twice and that made me feel good, even if it was a bit soppy. Incidentally, there's a fiver here for the first person to call Steve a soppy git. Mere words have let me down again. MILLWALL LLAMAS VS EAST LONDON III'S - 9TH JANUARY 1999 Millwall Albion v East London III 0 - 3 Second Helpings But you can tell he's getting on when he tried to convince everyone to have a quarter hour break when the ball went into the graveyard. Anyway, the game of rugby undertook several rule changes on Saturday, the most notable being that you can now play the ball on the ground, you can break from the scrum before the ball even been put in and you have to be 77 before you can get away with letting Stephen Pippard run around you. Oh and the line outs don't need to be straight either. Whatever, we were frankly better, and if by some miracle we can keep the backs together and find a fiy-half we'll be laughing. However, given the fact that Mark received on average 10 hospital balls out of 10, we can consider ourselves privileged if he ever stumps up again. Needless to say the half back axis worked with all the speed, precision and smoothness of a hibernating sloth. Good work. The tackling machine reentered the fray. I'm talking about Graham Biner here. For those of you that don't know him, he's the bloke that, just as you're bracing for the impact of the opposition's waist on your shoulder, flies in front of you and sends him back 30 feet. In my humble opinion, it was a bit of a laugh, although I still can't believe that we lost. MILLWALL LLAMAS VS KINGS CROSS STEELERS - 16TH JANUARY 1999 Millwall Albion v Kings Cross Steelers 40 - 24 Second Helpings No matter, as far as the game is concerned, Millwall got more tries than The Kings Cross 'Hoop' Steelers (hereinafter referred to as KCS) (thank you Steve) and therefore won. Allan' s score has been duly recorded in case you were wondering. I also know that Adam got three, the greedy bastard. However, there were far more interesting things to talk about, such as, (and I'll start on the most serious note and regress from there) finding ourselves in a situation where, the week before our Tetley 6d1 round tie, the first team find themselves without a match. So a training session was set up. Given the aforementioned circumstances, would you have turned up ? Well would you have ? I know I would have. Happily some did. Unhappily, several didn't and I have no doubt that all the excuses were 100%. Still. Altogether more worrying was the make-up of The KCS side. There were plenty of players about all wanting a game. KCS needed two centres and a second row. Up popped Flex (treasurer), Rupert (chairman) to fill the centre places and Guy at second row. I'm not going to dwell on the speed with which Guy got his scrum cap on, but it was the first item of kit out of his kit bag. Neither am I going to dwell on the budding romance between Rupert and one of KCS's substitutes. I would, however, like to point out that when a Millwall team walk onto a pitch and find themselves confronted with an opposition containing two -out of the three most important official positions with the third reffing, consider yourself duty bound to put them out of the game as soon as possible. This is even more important when they end up forming the half-back axis. Furthennore, one of Millwall's founder members trundled on for KCS as we)) and every single one of them walked off the pitch completely unscathed. Disgraceful. We have also decided to ban smoking in the shower. Yes, that means you Terry. It was good to see Millwall's newest recruit playing a blinder in the bar. If you didn't see his blazer, you missed a real treat. John (or Chico)(that is, until we can think of a better nickname) played quite well as well. Long may that continue, at least until he changes clubs. Millwall's back row were the star turn of the game with Chris, Christian and Ollie putting themselves about with a regularity that was not so much surprising, given the opposition, but slightly troubling. Millwall's first half dominance was a tribute to AJJan GalJacher's vision and perception. You only need to look at the difference in the game when he went off to see that. That is not a criticism Warren, more a hmmmmmmm. Anyway KCS managed to come back from three or four tries down to a margin of just two points. Which had absolutely nothing to do with their new half-back partnership. The last ten minutes saw Millwall kill the game off with two late tries, one of which was scored by Tim Phelan. Most of KCS scores were attributable to their full back cum flanker Nick Revell. On a more sober note, KCS absolutely destroyed us in the bar afterwards, despite Ollie's effort with the yard. That is, frankly, unforgivable, especially as every always calls the
opposition a miserable bunch of bastards if they duck home straight after
a game. It was left to Nick and Richard Mutter to keep them company until
Steve turned up and decided to entertain everyone. MILLWALL 1ST XV VS BILLERCAY - 23RD JANUARY 1999 THE FRONT LINE Subs: Tim Phelan, Chris Miller, Mike Costin, John Crawford, Rupert Moreton.
Now cast your mind back to two weeks ago. If you can remember any of it. We were up against Billericay. I’ll be honest, at the very beginning of the competition we knew these guys would be heavily involved in the closing stages. Do not be surprised if they win it. And it would be fair to say, having played and lost to them, that they were clearly the better team. The refreshing bit about the whole affair is the knowledge that their superiority was in their knowledge of each others play and awareness of their support. It was not their skill levels, attitude or application. Remember, half of our team Were in the seconds when we played our first round match against Mistley. We’ve only just met. We train on a horse paddock. And the ref is a dickhead. The day got off to the best start possible with Rupert ringing up from I Luxembourg and announcing that his flight had been cancelled. A suitable and eminently capable replacement was found with Chris Miller buggering up his long made plans for moving house and stepping valiantly into the breach. Nevertheless, it put a slight dampener on the preparations. The trip to Brentwood went off with not too many problems although Roy and Dennis were a bit surprised to ring up Compo and hear Flex’s attempt at a northern accent fail miserably, ay oop tha knows. The pre-match preparations went swimmingly, it was obvious to Billericay that they were in for a game. You can bet that they were never going to take us lightly, such is their professionalism. Even so, the first half gave great cause for concern. I assume that we lost the toss as we had the slope and the wind in the first half. We reached half-time only 6-0 down, but our belief that their pack were their real strength took away from the calibre of their backs. Our forwards were a match for theirs. The truth of that can be gleaned from set-piece statistics, where we were even in the scrums, and this is not over enthusiasm, and shaded the lineouts. I can tell you that their support were heard saying on more than one occasion, ‘bloody hell, no-ones done that to us all season. The real damage was done by their exceptional defensive organisation. Let’s face it, we were never given a sniff of their try-line. Ally that to the alarming regularity with which they turned over our ball and you have an idea why they have kept 7 clean sheets out of nine in their league campaign. With the other two matches having only let in one try. That didn’t stop us trying though, and there was one crucial moment where we had actually engineered an overlap. The element of surprise let us down, i.e. we were so bloody surprised to have done so, we thought it was a trick and kicked them the ball back to avoid the obvious sucker punch. Shit happens. The roar of approval from the Billericay sideline was deeply distressing. Meanwhile, back at the coal face, miracles were being performed, I don’t know what the tackle count was but they were going in with extreme force and marvellous regularity. It was great. The second half was imminent. It was clear that turning around 6-0 wasn’t a bad achievement, but with the physical conditions of the terrain and the weather, we would have needed to be at least 15 points up to have a chance. Billericay took full toll of their advantages in this half with the ball launched downfield in their defensive third and strong running from the backs in the middle third and beyond. It was going to take a lot more than the wholehearted defence that we put in to prevent defeat. Keeping the snore down and playing for pride became the goal after Billericay
went more than two scores up with less than a quarter of the match to
go. This is where the most disturbing part of the match began to take
shape. This jerk went a little silly. The actions of the Billericay players
and touch judges bear eloquent testimony to this. Have you ever seen an
opposition player run up to your support after a penalty try had been
given and apologise to them. Well, have you. I’m not going to waste any more time on the inadequacies of the officialdom. We know all about that. Sportsmanship is the one quality that we hold in bountiful supply, and I’m glad to say that we did ourselves proud again. Steve Harford’s leadership before, during and after the game was as near to impeccable as you can get under the circumstances. I particularly liked the cheering off. I can tell you that we’ve made an awful lot of friends during this campaign. I’m talking about the sorts of friendships that will last. And not all of them confined to the ranks of MiIIwall R.F.C.. The surprise etched on the Billericay faces when they realised we were going back to their place, after having lost; was very touching. We reminded them of what rugby is all about. Pray that we don’t lose it. Just so that you don’t forget, it is about playing the game that you love, with your friends, against another 15 or so friends and then going and having a drink with them, regardless of the result. Millwall R.F.C. had reached the last 16 of a national cup, progressing at least two rounds further than should have been the case, if you believe the form books. They had been asked to climb bigger and bigger mountains, week after week. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before they came across one that little bit too high. Nevertheless, they reached a point where three more games would have seen them run out at Twickenham Who’d’ve thought it. There was only one thing left to do,
we had to make sure that we clin1bed at least one mountain before the
day was out; Sunshine Mountain that is. Oh, and their clubhouse roof.
MILLWALL 1ST XV VS DAGENHAM - 26TH FEBRUARY 1999 Millwall Albion v Dagenham 57-0 The Front Line They were superior in every facet of the game. As I'm sure you've heard me say plenty of times on Saturday, whenever Jim touched the ball I thought that we would score. Now consider that Dagenham's strength has always been their pack. How on earth did we get so much ball. Because the pack played mightily, even when we'd lost two of the original eight, they destroyed Dagenham' s eight. I don't know where to begin, so I'll just ramble on a bit asking rhetorical questions like, Did you hear the floodgates open when Andy danced over for the first try ? Well if you didn'~1 certainly did. The walk onto the pitch had Dagenham so psyched out;aIl they could do was defend their hearts out for the first 15 minutes. Did we leave their 22' during that period ? . Would Paul Ryan have made the try line without that superb hand off? And how pleased were you that his uncle was there to see it ? How many pairs ofhands did the ball touch for Hami's first try ? How many times were those hands Connan' s ? And what the bloody hell did he think he was doing there ? In the centres ? Jamie and Connan ? And why did Hami score both his tries in the exact comer that Jan the photographer was stationed ? Actually, I think that I know the answer to that one. Because "I'm gonna do her with me boots on." It was ridiculous, I don't want to give anyone the impression that the backs were the reason we won the game, but in comparison to what Dagenham had on offer, they were on another planet. Reg and Eliza turned up and asked me the score, before I could answer, it had gone. up. This was one of those days. Thank god not enough seconds were available, else I'd have missed it. I'm going to tell you now why the backs had so much ball. Steve Harford won a line out or something and got isolated, he got hammered by two or three of their pack. Still on his own he managed to stop their drive and get back three or four yards back towards their line. Before I forget, because their isn't going to be enough space, the try scorers were Andy Peasey, Paul Ryan, Paul Hamilton 2, Stephen Pippard, Phil Antenbring, Kevin Bulmer 2 and a penalty try that would've been Rhys'. I will revert back to Hami ' s first try . It was one of such quality , that you are unlikely to witness a better for a very long time, if at all. This was exactly what Coach and Andy had been talking about all year. The proof is in the pudding folks. The move swayed from one side of the pitch to the other, at all times Mike Beech was no further than two feet from the ball, boy was he glad when we scored, there must have been four or five phases, Jamie and Connan were involved far more than they had any right to be, Neil Meldrum passed the ball. And all of this took place at an unholy speed. All Hami had to do was run into the space that had been created and preserved once it had been attacked. I was so gob smacked I couldn't speak for about ten minutes, other than to say, did you see that ? It was awesome. The one black spot on the day, and it was a bloody big black spot, was the unfortunate injury to Gareth's knee. Get well soon Gareth. I fervently hope that your 100th game for Millwall is not going to be your last. For a quite marvellous performance thank you one and aIl. But that was last Saturday. There were ten people at training on Wednesday last, for sticking with it, thank you Connan, Andy, Dan, James, Neil, Graham, Flex, Alex, Terry, Pete and Chico. MILLWALL LLAMAS VS OLD STREETONIANS - 6TH MARCH 1999 Considering our performance against Old Streetonians First XV who are, incidentally, a division above us in another league structure, that day isn’t very far away. We lost the first half 3-0 and won the second 3-1 thanks to three quite unbelievable tries. One of which, is so unbelievable that I still can’t believe it happened. It was a miss pass from the base of a scrum, that was travelling backwards at 100 mph, straight to the wing, who scooped it up joyfully and sprinted over. Steve Brooks was the winger and Mike Costin’s right foot was the passer. It is clear that all those Saturday afternoons watching Tottenham Hotspur
are not entirely wasted. The other two tries were scored by Pip, who finished
off a quickly taken penalty, and Darren Boyle, who barged over from close
range by finding extra strength with the certain knowledge that a sixteen
man overlap was angrily forming itself into a lynch mob. |
