Padding the timetable

One hazards of travelling by train to fixtures you may attend often enough to remember the time of the train, but not often enough to keep fully on top of small changes, is finding that the timetable has undergone a bit of padding. Last week was the first time I had been to watch Firwood Waterloo for a couple of seasons, last season had too many weekends with no sport at all. So, the 15 minute journey that, with a seven minute walk from the station, meant the right train could get me there as the game kicked off, had now changed to 20 minutes, so at kick off time I was trailing along the road in the wake of a sprightly elderly gent, with the unmistakable sound of a game coming from the ground.

I arrived to find the game against Sale FC in full progress in bright coastal sunshine.

When I was at school, there was a chap a couple of years above me, known to all as Wilf, who had an optical prescription heading into double figures, and whose talents were most definitely in the academic direction. A mutual friend told me of a PE lesson where he received the ball, sprinted for the line, deposited it in the appropriate manner, wondering why he had encountered no opposition, only to find he had placed the ball over the touch line. I am sure Waterloo's Freeman Payne was unlikely to do the same, but the coach seemed keen to make sure.

It had the desired effect, resulting in a superb individual try.

The scrum is something of a mixed blessing for the photographer - players are in one place and not moving too quickly, but there is a limit to how many scrum photos you want from one game. The sequence of engagement has been revised - the "crouch, pause, touch, engage" sequence, where, if the referee was a bit slow, the last step could be a statement of fact rather than an instruction, has been replaced by "crouch, bind, set".

This is to ensure the packs are in contact before they start pushing, with the aim of reducing the risk of neck injury. Referees are instructed to ensure the law that the ball is to be put in straight is strictly enforced.

This has the result that the opposing hookers compete in hooking for the ball with their feet. When the changes were introduced, there were complaints from Premiership coaches that their hookers had long since lost the skill of hooking, which was met with a typically forthright observation from Daily Telegraph correspondent and former England hooker Brian Moore that the clue to the function of the position was in the name, and that they should find it again. From my somewhat inexpert observations, this seems to have made the scrum a more genuine contest, albeit with a strong advantage to the side putting in. In this game I noticed the ball being won by the side not putting in twice in as many minutes (once for each side), which I would not have expected in the past

One aspect that leaves me confused is what a player who has been tackled is allowed to do with the ball on the ground. I thought the player simply had to release it, but these days you seem to be allowed to hold it in a convenient position for your team mates.

I wondered whether this was just my memory, but I was not alone: I was standing in front of a group of former players who looked to be in their forties, as I am, and they were reminiscing about how it was better in the days when you just let go of the ball.

The game was a bit one sided in places, as you might expect with Sale chasing the title and Waterloo competing to avoid relegation, although Waterloo still managed a couple of good tries.

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

Final score: Firwood Waterloo 13 Sale 45