Solutions-IMS

League Loyalty

Loyal fans that we were, we could dismiss the shameful final score of the week before as a fluke - 59-8. We got proudly into our rugby team colours and set off, ready for the turnaround of the season.

Light rain fell as the players trudged onto the pitch. And in the first ten minutes of the match, the opposition had scored and converted. This set the precedent for the rest of the half. There is normally some redemptive quality to a team even if they don't have a brilliant half however - at least their lineouts were good, or they were strong in their scrums or even, they showed plenty of effort. The highlight of the half for us was none of the above, but that a score commentator had managed to inadvertently leave his speaker on. The crowd jeered to such gems as 'Get-back-get-back-get-back-get-back!', 'Idiots!', and last but not least, 'Yes please Jen, I'd love a cup of tea.' 40 minutes in, the score was 35-3, and we needed the break.

In the second half, we didn't even have the comedic value of a commentator's blunder to fall back on, and towards the end (at 54-10) an away supporter turned to us with a 'Season ticket, boys?' Small mercies! The referee awarded a penalty try in the waning minutes of the match out of sympathy, which we converted, and the final score was 54-17. 'I'd forgotten why I stopped coming to these,' we heard someone muse.

Loyalty was unforgivingly flung through the window, and the next day, we threw three new team names into a hat. At the very last minute, somebody suggested that the home team deserved one last chance and wrote up a fourth name, REDEMPTION, which only just made it before the pick.
It is of course well-established fact that the pet picks the owner; the wand chooses the wizard; and now the Solutions boys can confirm it's the rugby team that chooses its followers. MACHEN was discarded. Followed by PENALLTA. BRIDGEND was a close runner-up. All that remained was the home team we had followed all along.

The two of us being revitalised steadfast supporters, the weather being off, and the match being away, we did not see our team play the following weekend. But! A friend of a colleague relayed the score off to the office on Monday: a 42-12 VICTORY. It just goes to show, a little bit of loyalty can go a long way!

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Addendum (24th September 2010):

Good news and bad news. The bad news is a 47-17 loss villanously disguised as a 42-12 victory, and that therefore Carl has officially been struck off the Friends of Colleagues list for good.


The good news? That's our smallest point difference this season! (Roll on the weekend!)