Photo of the Week: A Story in Two

   The project began for most in November 2013 and culminated last Saturday with a Premier One's Major Premiership for Wanderers at No2 Sportsground v Southern Beaches... The 1st XV triumph in 2005 was a special victory but this may have eclipsed that [just] in my mind...
   In 2005 our First VX carried the usual Wanderers tag of being soft show ponies with our 'just run it' motto... how could they beat a Waratahs side brimming with tough nuts and large men in the forwards, including Mark Tafua on release from Community Service to play...
   After our own success earlier in the day I watched as a game plan unfolded that yielded a 10-3 GF victory... Coach Al Barker set basically three things in place....

1. They won't expect us to take them on up the middle, inviting a contest in the forwards so let's do it
2. They think we are weak and will come out to smash us, so we must take it, get up again and keep on playing... ask Jules Morton about it, he got belted repeatedly but kept on coming...
3. A couple of simple set piece plays involved a hit up person, a runner and a decoy... repeatedly the backs ran that play in two of those three ways... then when it counted, the in close hit up runner actually received the ball and sliced through a gap as the defence read it as either the runner or the decoy as per the previous times...

As Waratahs became more and more frustrated a 10-3 result was a high win!! The Tahs coach will say "we didn't turn up today" but it will mean, we didn't expect that and didn't get on top...

   At the same time, this Saturday just gone, Wanderers used superior fitness, nerve and the steel of 6-8 weeks of focus on defence, to blunt and meet Beaches right where they needed to... tackling head on, keeping on getting up on them and not flinching!! It meant a less than ideal result by half time was converted into 'enough' points by tackling and keeping on tackling!! 20-17 with 11 minutes injury time on was an amazing result considering time with sin binned players etc...
   The set piece move off which Andrew Tuala scored was a gem... stuff we used to run ten years ago when defences were less efficient... throw in the line out ball, tap down at the back, 1/2 back across field to the hooker whose run around after the throw and charges across field into the middle channel and pushes the defence back and over the line for the try!! They saw it when it was too late!! Their big boppers played the full 80 [well 91] but were slowed and ineffective late in the game...
   Let up, they score even once and the energy lifts for a different result... in the end the resolve and fruition of months of planning 'came off' on the big day... it was great...

   Why the second photo, well as I watched successive teams celebrate their wins all day I cast my mind back to my last year as a coach in 2005 where earlier in the day, before Waratahs were upset, we had hatched our own little tactical win in B Grade!! [our 4th Grade]!! Slime 5/8th fullback Jason Toby [former 1st XV and Aussie touch footballer] was a good rugby player and in this team and grade he ran their attack, kicked well tactically and drove their options... In the GF our match plan was to drive him sideways and deny him room to the point he ran around in a circle at one stage and essentially Slime's attack stuttered and struggled as they got increasingly frustrated!!
   I knew that day I needed to step back as I was busy with work and couldn't commit fully, so other coaches had to carry the load... namely the late Mick Jennings [pictured] who worked all that strategy... From memory the other cog in the plan was Dave Derkenne who turned them around all day and marshalled our defence and kept everyone going!! I copped a full gatorade bucket thanks Taity et al...

They are rare blokey moments of joy, relief and achievement!!