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.

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

Battle of the Vikings

It is not often I attend a game as a genuine neutral. Even at a club I do not usually watch, I tend to support my local team. However, on the basis of an unduly pessimistic weather forecast, I decided not to travel to Scarborough for Lancashire's County Championship rugby union game against Yorkshire, but went to Caldy for Cheshire's game against Northumberland. Both sides lost the previous week, against Lancashire and Yorkshire respectively, so I was not looking for a result to help my side (apart possibly from a highly unlikely low scoring draw).

The Wirral has a strong Viking heritage. Nearby Thingwall includes Þingvöllr, its name in Old Norse, on the signs at the village boundary. Northumberland of course has a Viking connection too, and some players looked the part.

Cheshire had made a good choice of venue for the weather conditions. As it was a bright sunny day, one of the warmest of the year so far, the Dee Estuary provided a welcome breeze.

The comments from the Caldy Chairman in the programme referred to the "open air grandstand", which saw good use.

Some spectators were ready to pounce if the ball came out of play.

The less populated open side provided an ideal vantage point, with the sun directly behind me, so I had no problems with shadows. I did not need to worry about shutter speeds, with the sports mode selecting 1/1600 or 1/2000s. With its also selecting ISO 400, that gave an aperture around f/8. This is narrower than under most conditions, so there is a greater depth of field, which was handy for the pictures illustrating the crowd. In future, I shall try increasing the shutter speed (I can go as fast as 1/4000s) or decreasing the ISO to 200 and see if I can get some shallow depth of field on a bright day.

University players are not common in this competition, not least because of the time of year coinciding with examinations, but Northumberland scrum half Tom Banks of Newcastle University had a good game last week, and looked like doing so again this week, but unfortunately sustained an injury that ended his afternoon after about half an hour.

Being present in a non partisan capacity meant I did not feature one side's players over the other in the final slide show. This is in any event not as clear cut in rugby as in football. In the latter, I concentrate on when our own players have the ball, whereas in rugby a player tackling makes for just as good a picture.

For the individual shots of players running, kicking or passing, my selection was quite even.

Having watched these games for a few years, I recognise some players, although they do not always turn up where I expect them. Qualification for the competition can come from being born in the county (generally following historic boundaries), living there, or playing for a member club of the County RFU. The latter two can change, so, for example, having seen James Smith playing as a replacement scrum half for Lancashire last season, we see him this season fulfilling the same function for Cheshire.

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

Final score: Cheshire 35, Northumberland 31.