It never rains in Southern California

At Sedgley Park on the other hand...

I have not seen much of Lancashire's campaign in the rugby union County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup this year, sticking with football for the end of the North West Counties League season. However, I was free for the last game, against Cheshire, at the familiar venue of Sedgley Tigers (or Park, as those of us of a traditional bent pronounce it). The weather in Manchester was as expected, with the air close enough to give me an urgent desire to open a window, until I remembered I was already outdoors.

I am always surprised by the number of spectators at these games wearing wellingtons. Facilities vary between grounds, and the authorities are not as keen as in football to ensure you stay on the hard standing, but even so, it seems like overkill. Wet weather protection was, however, needed quickly after the kick off, as a large cloud dumped its load on us.

You do not expect to see steam coming off the scrum at this time of year.

Once the rain had passed, the light was fairly even, with the sun occasionally poking through light cloud. There were more dark clouds in the distance, which I hoped would not bring more rain, as I had a line of washing out to dry.

I experimented a bit with the resulting images. A disadvantage of shooting in raw is the extra processing time, so I was looking to speed this up. I tried the ViewNX 2 software that came with the camera. If I want to make changes to the raw file, it does not have any speed advantages over Photoshop Elements, and indeed seems considerably slower. However, if the only changes could as easily be made to the jpg, it offers a batch conversion. As this uses a lot of cpu resource and little memory or disk, whereas editing uses the opposite, I can start editing as soon as a couple of jpgs have emerged from the process.

The results seemed quite crisp.

It was not always as clear what was going on.

It even looked at one point as though the referee was thinking of making a move with the ball.

Lancashire have been successful in these encounters for the last few years, with the county almost being an extension of the successful Fylde sides, and reaching seven successive Finals. With a number of players appearing to have retired, and a change of management at Fylde, Lancashire's dominance looks to be slipping, with the visitors securing a clear win to claim the place in the Final. Things were worse the other side of the Pennines, with Yorkshire finishing bottom of the group.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Lancashire 11 Cheshire 27.

Let the camera do the work

Last Saturday saw another rain related postponement for Prescot Cables, with our chairman reporting the surface water was the worst in 15 years with other games having similar problems. By lunchtime the choice was down to football at Burscough or rugby union at Waterloo. I chose the rugby, as it was easier to get to, the game was less likely to be abandoned, and Birkenhead Park, who have used my pictures, were the visitors. There had been no games for a couple of weeks, so the grass looked rested.

I have posted before about saving files in jpeg and raw. The difference is camera dependent, particularly in the internal processing to create a jpeg. Despite having new kit, I will not revisit the question for non sports photography, the advantages of raw outweigh the disadvantages. However for sports work, it is more finely balanced. The extra processing for raw files on the computer takes time - about 45 seconds per photo, an hour and a half for 120. The D5300 introduces a new issue: even with a high speed SDHC card (80MB/s), the size of the file, about 25MB, is enough to cause an issue with buffering with exposures in quick succession, enough to get a run, but not the goal at the end of it.

"Test the application" is a watchword of these pages, so I decided to shoot entirely in jpeg, to compare results from previous games. I started with the sports mode, on the auto ISO setting. The colours lacked saturation, which had as much to do with the teams' colours as anything else, and was easily sorted with a tweak in Photoshop.

The home side made a strong start.

The auto ISO setting, with its maximum of 3200 lasted me for most of the first half, after which I worked up the scale, to 6400...

... to 12800.

Noise levels were better than the equivalent on the D5000 (where such existed), on a par with what I could obtain on the computer. For the last few minutes, as floodlights were unavailable, I went to 25600, where the full range of noise reduction is not available. There was a lot of grain, which I would have been able to reduce on a raw image.

Switching sports has moments when you forget what is going on - at one point I was thinking, "He's just run the full width of the pitch to join in that pushing and shoving", before remembering it was a maul, and joining it was the idea.

The visitors played more strongly in the second half, clawing back some points, but not enough to prevent a home win.

The game finished just before the next wave of rain arrived, an advantage on this occasion of the kick off time: Paul from our Train Crew went to Burscough and reported a good game in atrocious conditions.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Firwood Waterloo 36 Birkenhead Park 21.

Nice cigar, but no try

Prescot Cables planned to make a special occasion of the game at home to Warrington Town, with local Mayors and the Member of Parliament being invited. Unfortunately, whilst the week had been reasonably dry, it rained overnight on Friday, and by Saturday morning the pitch was no longer playable. With most football in Liverpool being postponed, I decided to head for Birkenhead Park. The opposition of the day was Wirral RUFC, from a couple of miles down the road, so they could take a late decision on whether to play. A slippery pitch in football can lead to broken ankles, whereas rugby players are likely to end up flat on their faces in the mud, which is in many ways the idea. Standing water is, however, a problem for everyone.

At the time I needed to leave home, the game was still on, so I bought a ticket. Some refer to Merseytravel's Walrus card as "Oyster style", presumably meaning it is small and plastic. The essential component of Oyster is pay-as-you-go, whereas Walrus is pay-before-you-go, so you need the day planned before you first use public transport, and changes are either wasteful or expensive.

No sooner had I got on the bus, I found the game was postponed. However, Waterloo (one less zone on the Walrus) were still playing. This was against Sheffield, so if there was an announcement, it would have been made by then, although it was still raining heavily. I presented £10 at the turnstiles, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a programme and £7 in return.

I took a position on the terrace side, where there were pools of water: the pitch looked soft but playable. Waterloo were playing into a stiff breeze, with low cloud, and, with the floodlights being under repair, it was fortunate both sides' kit included some white

That did not last long, particularly for the forwards. although some of the backs tend to stay standing for longer.

Soon, mud was starting to merge with facial furniture.

For the second half, the hosts took advantage of being at home, and changed into dry kit, of a colour to do no favours to my exposures.

The referee also changed into something drier, although he was more visible.

This was a low scoring game, more rare in rugby of either code than a few years ago. Better pitches and rule changes have reduced the incidence of matches with pushing and shoving in the mud for 80 minutes finishing 3-0. This was not quite such a game, but the scores came from a penalty apiece in each half. I only attend three or four games a season, but I think this is the  first I have been to where both sides stayed in single figures, and the first where neither side scored a try.

As for the cigar, I was not actually going to attempt to smoke one (the last time I did was when you could do so indoors), it was far to wet for one to stay alight.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Firwood Waterloo 6 Sheffield 6

If you are not going to Yorkshire ...

... the next best thing is for Yorkshire to come to you.

Prescot Cables' scheduled game at Ossett Town saw Saturday morning scenes quite common at this time of year. Dewsbury and Ossett are good for beer and pubs, so a number of our train crew were waiting on the results of a 9.30 pitch inspection - the need for such an event does not usually bode well. The anticipated postponement found us all dressed up with nowhere to go.

I decided instead to attend Birkenhead Park's game at home to Sheffield. They have no FA strictures about turnstiles, so a table with a pile of programmes and a cash box is perfectly sufficient. However, they have moved it since my last daylight visit: had I arrived by bus, I would have seen it as I walked through the pedestrian gate; however, from the train in the opposite direction, it was hidden by the gate as I breezed through the vehicle entrance and wondered why nobody was taking money. Fortunately I stopped to look around, so the gate man attracted my attention and relieved me of £5 in return for a programme with one of my pictures on the cover.

The visitors' strip was blue and white with red socks.

These colours may have some civic connection, as Sheffield Corporation buses were white with blue trim and red wheels. That was until 1968 when the Conservatives won control of the Council, and the wheels started to be painted blue. When Labour regained control the following year, they went back to red. Another plausible version of the story is that a new general manager just preferred blue, but reckoned without the tyre maintenance contractors, who were notorious for not matching wheels, and changed his mind when buses started to appear with mixed wheels, like odd socks.

Followers of these pages will know the hosts' colours are also red, white and blue, which sounds like a clash (historically, the home side changed in such an event), but the different pattern meant the distinction was clear.

I took up position on the Park side. From the local weather, you would not have thought games were being rained off elsewhere, and the sun was behind me.

The visitors quickly opened the scoring, and had much of the play for the first few minutes.

We have looked before at the photographic potential of the line out. The principle is straightforward, the hooker throws the ball between the lines, and the players jump for it. Lifting was allowed in the nineties on the grounds everyone was doing it anyway. There is no requirement to throw the ball upwards, only for it to travel 5m horizontally, and we can see here that the ball has been thrown low, so the player at the front can catch it. I have never seen this, and was not expecting it twice more: it seems a tactic that relies on surprise.

The Park side is where the visitors' substitutes and coaching team are located, and on this occasion a photographer was with them. The jovial suggestion was made that I should buy some high vis and go the pitch side of the barrier, but I will stick to the spectator side, where there is no risk of interfering with the movement of the coaches. Having said that, with the gusty wind, players kicking penalties had to use a decent bit of force to make sure the ball went into touch, so I was relieved not to be fishing it out of the bushes.

Kicking off at 2.15 in the winter has become more or less universal at this level of the game, saving expenditure on floodlights. Naturally, the light fades towards the end, with the final whistle being around sunset, so I need to drop the shutter speed, giving the chance for another of those photos with the ball carrier reasonably frozen and everyone else slightly blurred.

This was an evenly matched game, with the hosts levelling twice, but unable to pull ahead, and finally falling to a converted try ten minutes from time.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Birkenhead Park 12 (T. Brown, Chidley, C. Hall) Sheffield 19.

Friday night lights

A number of rugby union clubs in England must have been disappointed when the hosts were knocked out of the World Cup, as they will have been hoping for increased bar revenue showing the games. Last Friday saw the third place playoff between South Africa and Argentina. I say Friday saw it, I had no intention of doing so, as I am not a fan of televised sport, and had no strong interest in the outcome. However, alternative entertainment was available at Birkenhead Park, in the Cheshire Cup semi-final against New Brighton. This was the first time I have photographed rugby under lights. Given that, in both codes, recovery time means it is only practical for a team to play once a week, midweek games, at least at the level I watch, are rare.

I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived, as they were not charging for admission. Unfortunately it also meant there was no-one to ask to point out a member of the committee, so my pint that has been on offer from the webmaster for use of my photos once again remained unclaimed.

I tried the light meter on my phone, not a precision instrument, and obtained a reading of 320 lux under a pylon. That suggests as a rough estimate the lights are set up for an average value of 250 lux across the field.

When play got under way, I quickly got some good results particularly in the fairly static parts of the game such as scrums.

I took up my normal position on the Park side, which, being even more lightly populated than usual, allows plenty of freedom of movement to follow play.

The line out is not everybody's favourite part of rugby union, and indeed it was the first part of the game with which rugby league dispensed in 1897, but it is useful to the photographer. In an evening game I could use the raw converter to lower the level of black to make the players appear in particular contrast against the sky.

Both teams were playing in a kit with a substantial amount of white, which is always helps with lighting.

I was alternating between 1/200s and  1/250s shutter speeds. The results from this when players are running across your field of view are always variable, but I got more than enough to make up a collection.

There was a difference of two steps between the teams: both played in the same division last year, the hosts having left through promotion and the visitors through relegation. A win for Birkenhead Park was not unexpected, but the final score, with the hosts being able to prevent New Brighton from scoring, was not necessarily a fair reflection of the balance of play.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Birkenhead Park 36 New Brighton 0.

Roses in the sun

Last weekend saw Lancashire host Yorkshire in the rugby union County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup. The game was at Fylde: as 11 of the starting XV play there, it made sense. It is easy to get to, and this year the Blackpool South train had a couple of extra wagons, er, I mean carriages. Timetable changes made for a less convenient arrival time, but Fylde's excellent catering meant I could have lunch when I got there. I feel when attending rugby union that using the right cutlery matters, so the question is, should one eat the chilli with a fork or a spoon? A savoury dish suggests the former, but the latter will get the last of the rice from the polystyrene dish.

The Met Office app promised sunny intervals: the weather turned out better, with almost continuous sun.

Results earlier in the competition meant that the winner would go through to the final.

There was a good crowd, drawn by the weather and plenty of publicity. Oddly, Lancashire seemed only to start publicising the competition in earnest for the second game, against Durham: the first, at Chester, seemed very low key.

I took up position on the stand side, towards the end Lancashire were attacking, where I could look out from the shade. The hedge would have fallen foul of football ground grading authorities, who like the ground perimeter fence (they are not keen on hedges) to prevent viewing the game from outside the ground, and there were definite gaps. Not that I was planning to take pictures from the pavement.

These fixtures are robust affairs.

Penalty scores play a greater part in rugby union than in football or rugby league. Some attribute this to the points available for a penalty kick and a converted try. The points available may encourage a team to kick, but some suggest the points for a converted try may give an incentive to risk an infringement, sacrificing three points rather than a possible seven. A penalty try can also be given where an infringement prevents a try being scored. Yorkshire opened the scoring in this manner: Lancashire responded with a penalty kicked by Christopher Johnson.

In a game like this, there is always the risk of injury, and Chris was replaced shortly afterwards by Steve Collins.

A try from an individual run is good for a picture, this from Jordan Dorrington took Lancashire ahead just before half time.

I decided to stay put after half time, as it was the quietest part of the ground. With Lancashire, as is often the case, having the better of both possession and territory for the second half, my results were not as good as in the first, although I was close to some moves being built out of defence.

Further tries from Ryan de la Harpe and Chris Briers and another from Jordan Dorrington gave Lancashire a commanding lead. Jordan Dorrington was subsequently selected for the England Counties squad to tour Romania.

The game continued to keep the physios busy. Spare a thought for Yorkshire's replacement scrum half, Isaac Green, seen here watching Ryan de la Harpe putting the ball in to a scrum - within three or four minutes of coming on, he had to leave the field after an injury.

Lancashire's win took them to their seventh successive final. I did not realise I had been following the competition for that long: it seemed like only a couple of years ago seeing Yorkshire go through to the final at Harrogate and sitting opposite Alex Davies and James Doherty on the train back to Leeds - Alex and James went on to have successful careers at London Welsh and Cornish Pirates respectively.

After the game, I walked along the coast to Lytham. I say "coast", I think there was water between me and Southport. On arrival, I adjourned to the Taps. On an almost summer day, the Thistly Cross Whisky Cask Cider caught my eye. After this, the National Rail app suggested the train back to Preston left Blackpool South on time, but, on a single line branch, there are no signals to track progress, so I was twiddling my thumbs for 20 minutes and missed my connection. Northern Rail's Twitter feed was busy.

I, on the other hand, planned to catch a train, an actual train

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Lancashire 29 (T Dorrington 2, de la Harpe, Briers; C Collins 3; P Johnson) Yorkshire 14

Cast not a clout

There is a well known saying, "cast not a clout till May be out", suggesting the inadvisability of putting one's coat aside too early in the year. Rod, our drummer at Prescot Cables, insists it is "till the may be out ", i.e. the hawthorn, or may blossom, is flowering, although opinions on this vary. The first record of the saying is in 1706, when the Julian calendar was in use in England, so one should possibly keep a coat handy until the second week in June.

When I set out for the Cheshire v Lancashire game in the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup at Chester RUFC, cold weather was forecast.

The club had a stand on one side, and a modern clubhouse on the other, signs indicating 12 pitches, and facilities for other sports including the County Squash Centre. The club sits next to the A55, so I am not sure whether they sold any land for the bypass, and were able to extend their facilities with the purchase money. There was a decent crowd on both sides, which restricted the movement up and down the touchline that is ideal for taking pictures of a rugby game.

The sun that had been promised for later was starting to break through, so I took up position on the stand side under the trees, the same side of the pitch as the coaches, etc. There is a technical area marked out, but they seem more relaxed than in football about whether anyone stays in it. Even the flags are pressed into service, although I am not sure they provide much support.

All sports need sponsors: with Sharp's Brewery's Doom Bar becoming a national brand in a short time, by sponsoring rugby union they gain access to a market that likes the cask conditioned product, but wants certainty as to what they will be getting. I am happy to drink it in a pub or club serving just one or two national brands, but pass it over if there are more local or unusual beers available. There is scope for confusion as to whether you are referring to the product or the place you are selling it.

My recollection of the first half was as something for the expert, with a lot of scrums and mauls, with the former having to be reset quite a few times.

However, I got a few decent running shots too.

Rugby union came to have numbers on shirts later than football, and no-one has considered the idea of putting them on the front of the shirt. There is a firm link between number and position, and none of football's superstition about the number 13.

However, one of the Cheshire replacements seemed to have a shirt from a different series, and definitely was not a fly half.

For the second half I took up position by the other end of the stand, looking across the sun that had now fully emerged. Lancashire established a commanding lead, assisted by Christopher Johnson's reliable kicking.

In the last few seasons, Lancashire have had a majority of their replacements, as well as a number of the starting XV, from Fylde, making good use of the players' familiarity with each other to come from behind in a number of games. However, this year, eleven of the starting XV were from Fylde, with replacements from elsewhere. Cheshire did not give up, with a last minute converted try securing a losing bonus point.

By the end of the game, the sun was fully out. I chose to walk back to Chester, and could have done with casting my coat, but then I would not have had it to hand when it got cold again.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Lancashire 21 (T Stewart, Arnold; C Johnson, P Johnson 3) Cheshire 18

Close cropping

During the first half of the Wales v England rugby union game a couple of weeks ago, my friend Dr Phil posted on Facebook that he thought the England players were all lads from Buckinghamshire, coerced into playing rugby at Eton, and they needed to strengthen the squad with some door staff from nightspots my student and postdoctoral friends go to long after my bedtime. There was one flaw in this analysis - none of the squad are from Buckinghamshire, and none went to Eton.

The sociological aspect of rugby union merits a few reams of academic literature, but the perception (never more than partly true) that the game in England was a public school preserve was a source of derision to our neighbours, particularly in Wales. In the professional era, whilst the majority of the starting XV against Wales (eight players to seven) was educated privately, this was mainly Millfield (on sports scholarships) and local independent grammar schools.

Of the comprehensive educated players, three came from a few miles away from where I grew up. My school offered football and rugby: the latter's players seemed more (but definitely not exclusively) drawn from those whose parents attended a state grammar school. Such schools when they existed in our area mainly played rugby. I avoided the conundrum by being hopeless at controlling a ball, but having a half way decent turn of speed up and down a 1 in 9 hill (for those in the know, Mossley is a mere bagatelle at 1 in 13). On the other side of the hill was Warlingham RFC, where a number of our school team played their club rugby, and current England captain Chris Robshaw played as a boy.

One group largely absent from the England squad, and I am not sure whether it was a significant group in the amateur era, was from the farming areas of the South West and East Midlands, where the game attracts support across the community, possibly because local games are a good excuse for a scrap with the next village.

The following morning, I found Prescot Cables' football game at home to Salford City was postponed due to a frozen pitch. It had been sunny the previous day, and not freezing overnight; however, there is an area in permanent shadow, which was still frozen from Thursday night. So, I headed off to table topping Birkenhead Park, who used my photos last season. I am not sure about the social makeup of the club, but being next to Birkenhead School and with a grammar school system in part of the Wirral, I suspect it is similar to that back home. The visitors, second placed  Kirkby Lonsdale, are from the solidly farming area of Westmorland.

I could have gone to a game a couple of weeks previously if Darlington had not been gung-ho about the state of their pitch, giving a wasted journey to County Durham. I would then have been able to join in their commemoration of Park and England captain Percy Kendall, killed in action in France 100 years ago.

One of my photos from the corresponding fixture last year was on the programme cover...

... a more closely cropped version of this one.

I generally regard including the ball as a minimum requirement, but the closer crop works quite well in the context of the cover.

The away side's colours always look bright on a grey day.

The away supporters seemed dissatisfied with some of the refereeing decisions, although not always being on top of the laws meant I was not able to offer an opinion. Here the ball carrier seems intent on letting everyone get on with their maul without him.

The hosts looked to be at a disadvantage with a man sent off just before half time, but maintained their lead with solid defence...

...driving forward when they had the ball...

...and a conversion accompanied by what sounded like a tile slipping on the changing room roof, the landing point for a fair few successful efforts.

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Birkenhead Park 20, Kirkby Lonsdale 17.