Rugby, to me, used to mean heavy rain and horrible weather but after two weeks of sunshine it now feels like a summer sport. Nick even showed off by remembering to put on his factor 50.

Fewer games and fewer tries means there’s a bit less to talk about tonight. So, let’s have a quick aside to look at some stats. I’m sorry they’re a bit ugly - I didn’t have much time.

Firstly, ELO. ELO is a rating system used to score the ability of teams. It was actually invented for chess by a man named Elo. You all start with 1500 points, you lose points if you lose, you win points if you win. If you lose to a good team that has a lot of points you don’t lose as many points and they don’t gain as many. Score differential is part of the equation too. Losing by 10 is much worse than losing by 1 but losing by 20 isn’t much worse than losing by 100.

The ELO for all the teams after 3 game weeks looks as follows.

We’re not at the bottom and there’s some teams close to us that we can definitely catch. I’m sure we’re improving game on game. The team we are now would beat the first team we ever put out.

Now a few easier ones. Average scored and conceded. Again, it’s ugly - I’m sorry.

We’re doing pretty good in attack. These results include 2 tries that were incorrectly taken from us. In terms of scoring, we’re near the middle of the pack.

Defending needed some work so keep that in mind when you read about our first game.

Anyway, back to tonight. Evan and I were the first to arrive tonight and it was 14 minutes until our first game before we were joined by more players. We were getting pretty nervous it would just be the two of us. With only minutes to spare the team arrived and we headed out to warm up.

GoodGym Newcastle 0 – 3 Ward Hadaway Spartans

We played with the sun in our eyes for the first half and struggled to get going and entered half-time 3-0 down, although, to be honest it should have only been 2-0 - the referee missed a fairly obvious touch. The second half we were a solid defensive unit. An unbroken chain of GoodGymers. There was no way the Spartans could breach us, and we managed a shutout - 0-0 in the second half. Only the second time we’ve managed to keep a clean sheet for a half.

Our spirits were boosted after game with the arrival of Dan. He was suited up and looking handsome and professional - you could barely tell it was him.

We also had a break for oranges that Miranda had kindly brought for us. No cakes for us today. Where’s the cake god gone?

GoodGym Newcastle 0 – 6 Onyx Barbarians

We had got to have a long rest after the first game, a luxury that we didn’t have last week. It was great to sit in the sun and chillout for a bit. I’m really happy that GoodGym has brought us all together and given us the opportunity to do this. What would you be doing if you weren’t at rugby today? I definitely wouldn’t be having as much fun.

This game was a bit of a throwback to our first match. We all remember Michael abusing the poor referee in our first ever game. Well, I think Michael was right - the referee. We had the same referee for our first two games this week. At one point Lauren had to ask him to do his job as he wasn’t running to tell us where the line we needed to get back to was.

I’m bitter about the decisions in the game - I don’t remember anything that happened.

GoodGym Newcastle 1 – (6/7/8)? Newcastle Distillery

Evan

We got a try! I’m quite proud of this one because the hard work we put in, led by Lauren, paid off.

She had taken us through some drills to get us in the right position. Learning how to work the ball forward and exploit gaps in the defense. She also added a new move to our arsenal - the switch.

The drills teaching us how to work the ball forward worked perfectly. Everyone was involved in driving forward. Working the ball all the way to the left and then back right. Then we showed off our new move.

We pulled the switch off to perfection as the final whistle went, switching the play to open up a gap for Evan to bring the ball home. Evan has been under the weather a bit recently, so it was good to see him get a try. He illness showed as he described the maneuver as

The floopsiedoo

I had a moment where I was going towards someone so fast that a big crash was inevitable. I was apologetic as we got back to our feet but his smile was ear to ear. He loved it. Shook my hand afterwards. I don’t understand rugby.

We forgot a group photo so you will have to make do with Dan.

MVP

The GoodGym Newcastle MVP for this week was awarded to Amy. She put in some great performances today but what impressed me most was her spatial awareness, she was always in the right place, there was no getting passed her today.

Congratulations!🎉

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