Earthblog

Player's blog
by Garry Holmes

Would anyone have guessed that the 6 Nations would start in such an exciting fashion (on and off the field)?
England looked quite good against Wales but terrible against Italy. The Wales v Scotland match - what an amazing finish to a game! France look in devastating form and must be favourites for the competition.
I hope everyone will join me in sending our best wishes to Thom Evens who received the bad neck injury for Scotland on Saturday. The good news is that he has movement in his arms and legs but has received 2 operations on a slipped Vertebra in his neck. I don’t think anyone in the rugby world like to hear about any kind of neck injury.
Other notes, Jerry Flannery has been handed a 6 week ban for kicking Alexis Palisson, a very cynical act indeed.

Joke of the week: What’s Welsh and travels down the M4 at 15 mph?
Hang on, it’s not a joke…. Let’s salute Andy Powell for showing that the rugby Spirit is not dead in the professional game. Could you imagine seeing him travelling along with a drunken grin on his face? The only question is, where were the rest of the Welsh squad?

Now to the real rugby.
Kendal travelled to Bradford and Bingley where we picked up a good hard win. Bradford were a physically strong team in attack, lacking confidence to execute their chances. Good defence by Kendal also kept them at arm's length throughout the match, and of course, a drop goal from Mike Scott, showing his experience, killed the game off. The week later, they picked up a 14 – 11 away win over Hull Ionians.
Again on our travels we headed across the Pennines to Harrogate, another very difficult place to go and win, although a losing bonus point is not as bad as it would 1st seem.
Sickness and flu had hit the squad leading up to the match at Harrogate, Chris Park was reduced to the Bench after his family were left with a sickness bug on Friday night. I was also Struck down with flu after Tuesday night training, meaning I was forced to miss training on Thursday and struggling to be completely fit for Saturday. Towards Friday evening my fever had dropped but I was left severely dehydrated, meaning that I had a lot of work to do. On the journey back from Harrogate the outstanding contribution to playing darts went out to Craig Wils and I both winning a game a piece, leaving Leroy devastated after the practice he puts in at the Castle.

At work, the tag rugby season in primary schools is well underway. Kirkby Lonsdale RUFC hosted the 1st festival of the year for the QES cluster. The festival saw 160 children from 4 schools have a full morning of rugby. The morning was led by 16 volunteers from QES, 8 of whom were completing a Rugby Leader's Award. They are all part of the Local Rugby Volunteers Programme set up by myself.
The Westmorland Barbarians have played their first match against Keswick, and I believe they are due to play Kendal U16’s soon.

A look at the weeks ahead sees the visit of league leaders Loughborough, this will be a very hard match with Loughborough hosting a number of internationals. A week later we are back into Local Derby mode as we visit Preston, looking to turn around the home lose we suffered earlier in the year.

cheers
Garry