By Rich
August 26 2003

The following is the story of the Latter Day Saints progress in the Leicester Tigers Touch Rugby Tournament played at the Tigers training ground; Oval Park in Oadby. Despite a playing record of played five lost 3 won 2 the LDS had a smashing day out! Pictures will be added later.

How the Latter Day Saints Faired
in
The Leicester Tigers Touch Rugby Tournament
Sunday 24th August 2003

The Latter Day Saints squad: Beef, Adam, Spawn, Badger, Smurf, David, Claire/Tunni, Emma, Alex, Ellie and Rich (me) met up at 11am on Sunday in the Spencer Arms car park. Given the time of day Badger and Spawn were fighting their natural urges to pop in for a pint. From there we set off in convoy into bandit country; destination Oval Park, the Tigers training ground and home of Oadby Wigstonians RFC. Before we’d even got there we had nominations for the days Kaliber moment. Firstly Beef putting his contact lenses in, he dropped one and had to rescue it from a spider web on the back of his car and then secondly Smurf decided to abandon the highway code and overtake on a blind corner/hump back bridge/double white line luckily for him he’s still alive to tell the tale!

We arrived just after 12 to some odd looks but I have to say fewer comments than I expected seeing as we were wearing the Saints kit kindly donated by the club. Claire joined us to help out with the bumps and bruises and give a quite a lot of pr-match massages. The weather was dry and warm but not oppressive as it had been at Henley and the pitches were certainly a lot kinder for falling over on.

We had a quick warm up and for a very nice touch one of the officials came and helped with the rules and refereed part of our warm up game. More on the referees later!

To our first game and it came as quite a surprise for us all to be facing a team called ‘out of touch’ made up entirely of regular rugby players all wearing long studs (we’d been told that trainers or moulded studs were the order of the day,) they had only one lady player. Needless to say we got wopped 1-8 in an ill tempered match and ‘Out of Touch’ went on to win the tournament.

We kept our spirit going into the next match thankfully against opposition that looked closer to our standard; Ellesmere College. As it turned out we were much better than them and registered our first win 3-1. Two things came out of this game that were special for me on the day. Firstly the referee, if you could draw a picture of a Maori then you’d draw something close to him but with more tattoos. He handled the game superbly, the result was never in doubt, so he relaxed his whistle, facilitating and educating both teams by warning them of their infringements but only pinging for persistence. He also played lovely advantage for David’s try. Secondly a well received try for Smurf a fantastic reward for the hard work he’s put in over the weeks not least taking on the role of team manager and keeping us all organised.

With confidence renewed we took on the 'Blah' team all wearing Tigers tops. From the start they scored a try without a single ‘touch’ being registered from our team. A minute later we were bewilderingly two down. At this point you’d expect our heads to drop, this team were too good for us, in fact the were the beaten finalists and in the pool stages had beaten the winners ‘Out of Touch’ preventing them from scoring a single try. However we stuck with and got the ‘driving’ game going. For those of you wondering how you ‘drive’ in touch rugby it’s simple. Player one goes looking for a touch plays quick ball for dummy half to pop to 1^st receiver who again goes looking for a quick touch. The aim is to catch the opposition offside and gain the penalty. This tactic can quickly gain the length of the field and with more practice and perhaps more fitness it could have taken us a lot further. Back to the game and we eventually lost 3-5 which given the start and the opposition wasn’t a bad result. Two massive highlights were Emma chasing down a man who thought he’d scored to touch him right on the line and Adam’s pacey try from half way which looked like a training ground move timed to perfection. We came off the pitch feeling we’d played well and on another day might have won.

To our final pool game against Lils Lions and I was wondering where my first try or even my only try would come from. This was funny opposition though; we were up against 3 fast and experienced men and 3 ladies who’d never played before the day of the tournament. We won easily 4-0 and indeed I got my try! The most satisfying thing of this game was playing against a team who tried to include everyone, even though the men may have beaten us on their own and the good spirit and banter afterwards. The aim of the tournaments is to promote touch rugby and introduce new players to the game, so for me the Lils Lions were the right type of team for the day.

Some teams had to leave and so it was left for Skegness and us to compete for the 3^rd/4^th place play off. This I felt was our best game of the day and going into the final minutes I asked the ref the score. He replied “4-3” as I knew we'd scored four (2 for Adam, one for me and one for Ellie) I presumed we were winning and called for the team to slow things down as we were deep into the second half. From the touch line Beef called "we need a try we're losing!" Confusion spread throughout and the referee confirmed we were losing! The game ended with no further scores and even more confusion but we accepted the result. Sportingly Skegness, another team in the right spirit, said to call it a draw. My only thoughts were that the ref ticked the wrong box for one of our trys or that he'd go completely confused because at least three of theirs were disallowed. I don't want to blame the ref too much though because he handled a very enjoyble and good natured match very well.

So in their first ever touch tournament the "Latter Day Saints" were runners up in the 3rd/4th play off final. Not bad really. We had a great day and everyone is keen to play again. It turns out that the winners 'out of touch' have been playing touch rugby all summer at variuos events and it was a shame that they beat 'Blah' in the final, despite their poor taste in shirts they seemed a good bunch of lads/lasses.

For the Record
Pool Matches
Latter Day Saints v Out of Touch	Lost 1-8
Latter Day Saints v Ellesmere College	Won 3-1
Latter Day Saints v Blah	Lost 3-5
Latter Day Saints v Lils Lions	Won 4-0
3rd/4th Play off final
Latter Day Saints v Skegness	Lost? 3-4

The day finished with a couple of pints enjoying the live band who'd been hired for the day. Beef and Badger argued as to the merits of american music after the set started with a Sum 41 cover but eventually both seemed satisfied with the band playing covers of  The Jam, The Specials, The Clash etc.

I'd like to say a big thankyou to a few people. To Shaddo for getting us the Saints shirts, to Beef for training us on Sundays, to Smurf for organising us at both the Henley and Leicester tournaments, to Leicester for putting on a good day, to Claire for sorting out our weary bodies and to everyone on the team who played with tremendous spirit-well done to us all!

Finally to anyone who considers taking up Touch Rugby - do it! It's a great game and although it lacks the physicality of the fifteen aside game it's tremendous fun and believe me you still ache from head to toe the next day! We will continue to train on Sunday mornings and are looking forward to the re-arranged Saints touch tournaments rumoured to take place in the Spring.

Come on you Latter Day Saints