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.

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

To arrive is better than to travel hopefully

I let out a sigh when I learnt Lancashire's game against Cheshire in the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup was to be held at Sedgely Park. That is most unfair on the club: I have visited on a number of occasions, they are well run, with excellent facilities including a stand. A visit would be fine if I could just get from home to the ground without having to actually travel between the two.

My main dislike about this trip in the rain that always seems to fall when I go there is the 20 minute walk from public transport, with no pubs or shops in which to shelter along the way. Well, there are, but once you reach them you may as well carry on 100 yards to the ground. I have always got the bus to the start of this walk, but with the aid of Mr Google and the walking routes on his maps, I found it is only a couple of minutes further to the tram, so I could take advantage of the tram's shorter journey time. Users of Manchester's trams will recognise the flaw in this, and even finding the journey time takes some research; they do not publish timetables, so you have to get it by stealth on the Traveline website.

I wanted to look something up in the Library and an exhibition looked interesting in the Art Gallery, so it seemed logical to get a tram from St Peter's Square. Unfortunately, the planned closure of the whole southern half of the system is an insignificant enough event for Metrolink not to put it anywhere obvious on their website, so I walked in the pouring rain to Piccadilly Gardens. The confirm button on the ticket machine should say "You've just missed one, are you sure you do not want to get the bus?", as the reduced frequency on the Bury line, for more engineering works "while we make Victoria Posh", more or less cancels out the journey time advantage.

Having got as wet as I could, there seemed little point using the stand, so I sheltered in the clubhouse porch to get the cover on the camera, then took up position on the other side of the pitch. My friend Jon wondered a few weeks ago whether there might be mileage in a combined monopod and umbrella: I thought the concept was reasonable, but there would be practical issues, particularly how to avoid the water going all over the camera when you put the umbrella down.

It was a grey day, with one side playing in shirts that look grey from a distance.

With the wet conditions, both ball and ground were slippery, so there was a lot of kicking, with associated lineouts and catches in open play.

I did not manage to get a picture of a rare dropped goal, from Cheshire's Richard Vasey. This is probably the most difficult way to score, taking considerable skill with the opposition bearing down on you, so it is usually better to go forward for a possible seven points from a try and conversion, rather than an uncertain three points.

Conditions improved in the second half, as the rain eased off, and I was tempted to put my coat and hat on the perimeter fence to dry. That turned out not to be a good idea, as it started to rain again, and I needed to put them back on, which made me feel even wetter. On the field, the ball looked easier to handle.

At 70 minutes, Lancashire were 12-19 behind, enough for a losing bonus point, which would be needed to stay level in the table with Yorkshire, who had scored a fourth try at Northumberland, with Lancashire's big win two weeks ago giving a superior points difference. However, in the last few seasons Lancashire have made good use of substitutions, and are good at coming back from behind in the last few minutes. It proved to be so again, with tries from Adam Lewis (converted by Chris Johnson) and Warren Spragg putting qualification for the Final beyond doubt.

Now, this blog is quite traditionally minded, so I enjoyed this sequence - it looks very much like a good old fashioned dive pass!

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

Final score: Lancashire 25 (T Rawlings, Lewis, Spragg; C Johnson 2; P Johnson 2), Cheshire 19

Changeable weather

On a train towards Blackpool all human life is there. On this occasion, the carriage on my little Pacer train was populated in large part by two weekend parties. I would say the noise was ear splitting, but it was mainly going straight through my skull without really troubling my ears at all.

Fylde RUFC, who were hosting Lancashire's game against Northumberland in the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup, have some pictures on display of Mr Beaumont playing for Fylde, Lancashire and England. The conclusion to be drawn from them is that there was a lot more mud back then then. Pitch maintenance and the science of growing grass have improved significantly in the last few years, although it has not addressed the amount of water falling from the sky. At the risk of upsetting the Fylde Tourist Board, it seems to rain whenever I am there, not to mention the wind blowing off the sea. Fortunately the worst rain was before the start of the game, when I could shelter in the bar. Well, it was fortunate for me, not for the players warming up in it.

In the last few years, Lancashire have maintained a stable core to the team, not always easy in a competition over four weeks in May. There is significant input from our hosts, combined with young players making their way up. As our game was taking place, two of my favourite former players were playing against each other in the Championship Play Off Semi Final, James Doherty with Leeds Carnegie and Alex Davies with London Welsh.

Northumberland seemed to have warmed up better, as they took the lead before Lancashire seemed to fully get going.

As the rain eased off, to be replaced by the wind, the home side soon started to get things together. Captain Chris Johnson has been useful with his feet in these games for a few seasons, kicking most of Lancashire's conversions and penalties ...

 ... today also kicking in open play ...

... before gathering the ball to put it down for a try.

The rain started again late in the first half, which coincided with another spell of Northumberland pressure, with their scrum half, Tom Banks, giving his team 14 points with two tries he converted himself.

I am not sure what the Lancashire coaches said at half time, but the team simply overpowered the opposition in the second half, and made good use of substitutions - many of the substitutes come from Fylde, so are used to playing together, rather than just being second choices for their position who might not gel when they come on.

Even more rain did not help the visitors.

The sun came out for the end of the game, just as the announcer forgot the visitors' name, referring to substitutions for Northumbria, to the muttered consternation of the gentlemen in Northumberland blazers standing behind me. For Lancashire Steve Collins came on for Chris Johnson who had earned a rest before next week's game against Yorkshire.

Fylde were keen for people to continue to enjoy the bar and catering facilities after the game, so I stayed for a pie - the pastry tasted as though it involved suet, unfortunately not often used in a baked pie. After that, it was off to Taps in Lytham, where I spotted a few more of the crowd enjoying their excellent selection of ales.

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

Final score: Lancashire 57 (T - Riley, Spragg 2, Johnson 3, Taylor, Briers, Brennand; C - Johnson 4, Collins 2); Northumberland 19

Mr Maccle and his field

It can come as a surprise how many places in England are named after people. People lost in the mists of time in most cases, but people all the same. Near my childhood home (in a village named after the fifteenth century owner of the land), one Eadhelm, in Saxon times, built a bridge. His bridge gave its name to the settlement of Edenbridge that grew up around it, and, by backwards naming, to the River Eden, a tributary of the Medway. Meanwhile, in Cheshire, Knut (or Canute) found no such structure when he wanted to cross the River Lily, and therefore needed to find a ford to wade across. It's grim up north.

A few miles away at around the same time, one Maccle owned a field, probably a more substantial piece of land than would attract the designation today. On this grew the town of Macclesfield, where Cheshire were to play Lancashire in the final group game for the Rugby Union County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup.

Lancashire's Nicholas Royle gets free from a tackle

As part of my journey, I used Cross Country trains, who have introduced a new category to their seat reservation system, "Available, but may be reserved later". It is the less convenient side of their policy to allow reservations up to 10 minutes before your train: if you do not have one, you need to check at every stop whether your seat has been reserved under you.

Wikipedia tells us a Sport England survey in 2006 found Macclesfield had the third highest level of participation in sport and fitness activity in England. It seemed to show, with my unscientific observations disclosing a leaner population than many comparable towns. I should have entered into the spirit and walked the mile and a half to Macclesfield RUFC's ground on the edge of the town, but when the Arriva North West Day Rover that got me to the station in Liverpool worked here as well, it seemed rude not to take the bus.

The weather was changeable, so I needed to keep putting the cover on the camera and taking it off again. I  could have just left it on, but I find using it so inconvenient that I prefer to take it off when I do not need it. County games do not occupy the place in the calendar that they once did, but there is still a decent turn out from the professional photographers, ready to give you lens envy.

It is the thought of carrying kit like that around (as well as giving me something to write about) that keeps me working with consumer kit: a lens like that is as heavy as it looks, and the size of the bag to carry it would probably put an end to those days out with the Cables Train Crew.

As in football, there are positions in rugby that tend to attract the lens more than others. One is the scrum half, who is often on hand when the players are reasonably stationary, such as putting the ball in the scrum (he is holding the ball by the ends here, presumably to roll it in - when I was at school, admittedly 25 years ago, we were taught to put it in lengthways)...

Thomas Webb feeds the ball in

... passing it to the backs when it comes out again (they do not do those dive passes I remember from the seventies any more)...

... and getting the ball from the ruck or maul.

Replacement scrum half James Smith

They sometimes get to run with it as well.

Cheshire scrum half Joe Murray

This was a much more running game than that against Yorkshire, with even a few shots of players chasing the loose ball, with which I am more familiar in football. Numbers on the front of shirts would be just as useful too.

Going in to the game, Cheshire needed to win, and do so by 13 points or score 4 tries to win the Division and go to the Final. With the final score of 20-13 to the home side, they had not done enough, so Lancashire made another journey to Twickenham, where they regained the Bill Beaumont Cup, defeating Cornwall, returning to the top tier of the competition after some years' absence, 35-26.

Across the Pennines, Yorkshire beat Durham, retaining their Division 1 place. I think it is their turn to host next year, so I am hoping for a picturesque location - I mean Huddersfield is all very convenient, but ...

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

Coming up Roses

There are usually two or three occasions during the season when my local football is postponed, but pitches are still playable for rugby union. That has not been the case this season, Prescot Cables have been fortunate that, on a few occasions when weather was bad to the west of the Pennines, we were away collecting points in Yorkshire. On other occasions, pitches were frozen or under a couple of feet of melting snow, which made them unplayable for any game.

The extension of the EvoStik League season meant that I also missed the first game of the County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup, although as Lancashire played Durham at Hartlepool, I may have missed it anyway: I do not have the commitment to the Lancashire cause that takes me on long distance trips with Prescot. Granted, last year's trip to Scarborough was long distance, but that included a couple of days in a seaside resort.

I nearly missed Lancashire's home game against Yorkshire at Fylde RUFC too. My train was delayed by the failure of a track circuit in the Huyton area. I was delayed for an hour on the first day after the engineering works that put it in about 4 years ago, and it has been causing bother when I go that way ever since. A gentleman sitting opposite me wearing a rugby shirt and bearing a ticket to the same destination decided to call it a day and headed to the ticket office for a refund. I decided to stay put, as, even if I was on the next train from Preston, and therefore an hour late, I would still catch the last 10 minutes of the first half, and it was only £5 to get in.

I arrived to find a scrum being reset, which was to be something of a theme for the afternoon. Both sides seemed to be infringing, with a number of scrums ending up going round in a circle.

The referee inspects the forming scrum

As the gentleman in the entrance booth looked like he had just counted his takings, and I only had the right change for admission, not for a programme, I did not get a team list. There are substantial changes in the teams from one season to the next, complicated by a couple of leagues having extended their seasons, meaning some players missed the first game being still needed by their clubs. I recognised about half the players, at least by sight, and in some cases by name, from last year.

Ryan de la Harpe

The weather was drier than I was expecting, although the wind was coming off the sea, so I was having bother seeing at times, as it was making my eyes water, a problem I encounter less than one might suppose.

Watching the game felt as though it was one scrum after another, which I am sure makes for a good game for those participating, and for former players with an in depth knowledge of the game, but less of a spectacle for the less trained eye. However, looking at the photos later, there was plenty of flowing action to capture.

When I see a good individual try in either code of rugby, I always get an ear worm of the rugby league commentator (and former union and league international) Ray French MBE announcing "a magNIficent try". We were treated to one such from Christopher Johnson. Here, he is starting his run (the line in the background is the Lancashire 22)...

... on the way ...

... and avoiding the last of the opposition.

He converted it too.

As someone more used to football, I never get used to what happens in rugby when time is up. In football, the referee ends the game regardless of what is happening, most referees are not unwise enough to blow the whistle when the ball is in mid air heading towards goal. In rugby, play continues until the ball next goes out of play. This was the first year the County Championship league stage has used bonus points (4 points for a win, 2 for a draw, with bonus points for scoring 4 tries and for losing by less than 7 points). With the score at 40 minutes at 35-25 to Lancashire, Yorkshire continued to press forward for the try that would secure a losing bonus point, so play continued for three and a half minutes until Lancashire gained possession and put the ball out of play.

The sides prepare for another scrum

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