THE STRANGE CASE OF HENRY AWESOME’S TACKY BALL HANDLING SKILLS
When Henry walked into the Tullywully RFC’s changing room pre-season, for training with the Wastrels XV few there were unimpressed. Standing at 6’ 1” tall and chiselled in every aspect of appearance, from his waxed black hair, steely blue eyes and firm jutting jaw right down to his bulging calf muscles and immaculately tanned toes. Henry Awesome LOOKED the epitome of a rugby player.
Many Wastrels noticed Henry carried his own ball. When questioned about this he was sanguine, explaining that he was comfortable with his own ball and more importantly could catch it. Some thought he said, ‘scratch it’ but that’s a story for another day. In the first pre-season game of touch rugby Henry displayed enormous physical prowess, sprinting like a springbok and few amongst the spiritually undernourished wastrels, in a rugby sense at least, noticed Henry’s inability to catch a rugby ball. The 10% catch rate marginally increased to 20% when he used his own ball. Into the season it became clear Henry was incapable of catching a rugby ball no matter how hard he tried. The Wastrels XV were content to put up with this as he could tackle a bit and of course helped drive them to away matches in a splendid Mazda sports car.
During October Henry announced he was going to South Africa for a holiday to friends out there. He arrived back 2 weeks later looking more bronzed than ever. At Monday night training he showed them a photograph of him standing with his arms round ‘his mate’ Naas Botha. Only two of the Wastrels had heard of the legendary boot of Springbok Naas Botha and clearly Henry’s rubbing shoulders had not transferred Botha’s also legendary passing and catching skills as the Monday night game of touch soon demonstrated.
In February the Wastrels stood assembled in the club house waiting to play a home league match. The 2nd XV were playing in the Kimberley Cup quarter finals and were a man down due to the 1st XV All Island League commitments. As Stuarty Mole, Tullywully’s 2nd XV coach stood surveying the shrunken physiques of the wastrels, one man stood head and shoulders above everyone else in that department. Henry Awesome was chuffed to be chosen to represent the 2nd XV and departed with his ball under arm to change. Many in the 2nd XV were impressed by Henry’s carefully ironed Tullywully socks and the crease that ran up and over his bulging calf muscles. It soon became clear to the watching spectators, home coach and visiting team that Henry was incapable of the basic skill of catching a ball. It was also clear that his searing pace and physicality would reap dividends for the seconds if he could only catch the damn ball. Stuarty Mole was getting desperate, they were losing by 4 points with 4 minutes to go.
“Catch the feckin’ ball”, he muttered at Henry in a break in play.
“I can’t”, wailed a stricken Henry.
“Well hurt your right hand and we’ll see what we can do”, breathed a by now very desperate Mole.
Seconds later Henry tackled a prop and lay on the turf his right hand clasping and unclasping like a fish out of water. He was brought off the pitch and as the Tullywully medical team crowded round, a bandage and a sticky substance were applied to the outstretched palm.
“Give Henry the ball,” directed Stuarty to the 2nd XV’s startled centre as the hand bandaged Henry resumed his station on the right wing. A minute later, the 30 odd spectators, opposition coaching team and opposition players gasped in disbelief as the ball flew into Henry’s outstretched, bandaged hand and stayed there.
TRY! Henry raced the remaining 50 metres in a matter of seconds and flopped over in the corner. He remained motionless on his stomach, ball still clutched tightly in his hand as teammates congratulated him and the physio raced on. Bending over the apparently stricken Henry, Wendy Biro the physio, breathed into his ear. “We’re getting a stretcher for you, just lie there and don’t move!”
Still lying face down and clutching the ball tightly, Henry was removed by stretcher from the pitch. As he was carried past Stuarty Mole he turned and winked at him. The opposition coach stared hard and then the opposition physio tried to remove the ball from Henry’s grasp. A minor scuffle ensued before the player was carried into the darkness of the changing rooms. There the physio cut away the bandages and ball from Henry’s paw. A delighted Henry was told to disappear and come back to the club on Monday evening.
The following week, after a complaint by the visiting XV who incidentally won the match with an injury time penalty, Henry was found guilty of deliberately using a tacky substance on his hand, feigning injury and refusing to talk about it to his Rugby Union. Tullywully RFC were fined £500, half of it suspended for 2 years and Henry Awesome was banned for one year.
Henry, a policeman by trade is currently working with the fraud squad and bringing all his knowledge on codology to bear whilst he whiles away the days and months to his return to rugby and the Wastrels XV.
PROP JOHN DEERE
Standing at the clubhouse bar in Tullywully RFC, prop John Deere looked a happy man considering hours earlier he’d been standing in front of his Provincial union’s disciplinary committee for punching an opponent senseless during a League match on Saturday last.
Asked how’d he’d got on, Deere told the assembled crowd of teammates and alickadoos that he’d received a reprimand and nothing more from the disciplinarians of the Union. “Strange that, considering you’d punched that tighthead so hard he was unconscious”, someone remarked and of course there was the red card from the ref! Deere said 3 guys up before him for various offences had been suspended from playing for between 3 and 6 months.
He explained that he’d told the committee that he was having a hard time from his opposite number and after one particularly brutal scrum, where he’d been lowered to the floor, he stood up with a great pain in his arm and felt slightly wuzzy. It was at this point he’d lashed out at the nearest person, who just happened to be his opposite number.
Tullywully’s tighthead, Prop Timmy Teddy wanted to know how John Deere had convinced the committee of his suffering and great pain in the arm. Rolling up his sleeve Deere exposed to the assembled crowd a very large and extremely purple bruise on his bicep. There was an audible gasp at the sight of the 4 inch diameter bruise. Recovering his equilibrium Tim Teddy mentioned he hadn’t seen any bruising on John Deere’s arm shortly after the match when they were getting changed. Explained Deere, he had a friend in the St. John’s Ambulance who created fake injuries for accident simulations and he’d persuaded him to rustle up a bruise for the committee. There was another audible gasp at prop John Deere’s audacity and a huge gulp for his serendipity from the assembled Tullywully clubmen.
Prop John Deere retired the following season after a minor lifetime in the f
ront row of rugby union’s trenches. It is not known if his act of deceit ever helped his career as a media communications manger but memories of his time at Tullywully RFC are laced with many acts of kindness, cunning and gratuitous violence.
THE REVRENT FERNANDO VIGGINS AND THE BITE THAT CAME BACK TO HAUNT
The Revrent usually played on the wing despite his multi talented ability to play scrum half, openside and even flyhalf if necessary. The reason for this was that despite his benign temperament off the pitch, he was a raging torrent of viciousness and unhealthy temperament on it, belying his somewhat scholarly appearance.
Today’s match against the Police XV was five minutes gone when the Revrent Fern got involved in the first scuffle as he tried to snatch the ball from the Police winger following tackle into touch. The Police hooker whacked Fern on the back of the neck and adjourned any further roughhouse whilst the referee called him to account with a quick word to cool it. 15 minutes later and the Wastrels openside limped unto the wing to be replaced in the pack by Fern. At the next lineout, as Police lines were being drawn up, a brawny voice shouted, “he bit me!”
“I did not!” the Revrent Fern’s high pitched and cultured voice responded almost instantaneously as though pre-empting any finger pointing and accusations that may or may not have been directed against him.
“Well bite him back,” interjected a by now frustrated referee who had witnessed an increasing amount of niggle amongst both packs since the Revrent had joined the forwards.
Police blindside Billy Farthing had been on the beat too long to be distracted by such trifling comments and continued to press the charge that he’d been bitten. A by now very exasperated referee demanded to see the evidence. Slowly, confidently rolling up his sleeve Farthing peered at his unscathed lower arm in horror, for no mark, save for a solitary pimple could be seen. After a cursory inspection the referee announced a penalty to the Wastrels. A brief grin flitted across the Revrent Fernando Viggins visage as Wastrels kicked a 3 pointer. They went on to win the match by 2 points.
The Revrent Viggins continued for a few years to ply his trade in the lower divisions of amateur rugby before retiring to an isolated parish many hundred miles to the south of Tullywully RFC. It is believed he continues to plough a lonely furrow of pastoral care and perhaps even a few rugby nuggets to his mainly elderly flock.
People say you can’t teach an old dog, new tricks. Players at Tullywully say you don’t need to, as the old dogs know enough old tricks to keep the Provincial Union’s law enforcers occupied for many more years to come.
As BJ Botha might say, chat soon.
The Ed says “Any similarity between the characters in this story and any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental!”
Corrections, comments or questions?