Oh, oobee doo
I wanna be like you
I wanna walk like you
Talk like you, too
It's the sincerest form of flattery, after all, so hopefully
London Scottish are suitably taken by Jersey's campaign of
imitation.
It started in Victorian times - the Exiles were formed in 1878
and the first record of rugby in Jersey was just a year later, but
it's more recently that the parallels between the two sides have
become more pronounced, with Jersey following a year behind.
In 2010/11, Scottish won the National One title and were promoted
to the Championship. Their first season was a tough one,
culminating in survival on the final day, and in the wake of this
the club took the decision to move to a fully professional
squad.
A year later and Jersey trod a very similar path. National One?
Check. Last-ditch survival? Just about (it was the Wednesday before
the final Saturday). Move to full-time? Check.
Things started to get ridiculous four weeks ago when Jersey hosted
Ayr in the British & Irish Cup and provided pipers to enhance
the match-day experience. "They'll think it's a bloody home game,"
muttered one member of the Jersey coaching team.
This weekend the two sides will lock horns at the Athletic Ground
in Richmond, where Jersey scored five tries last March but still
ended up on the losing side. The Channel Islanders will hope to
continue their emulation of the Exiles' previous season by moving
up to mid-table respectability after a patchy start to their second
season - victory in SW London would be a decent start.
The fixture, dubbed 'Sunday Crunch-Time' by the host club, kicks
off at 2pm on, er, Sunday.
News from the Jersey Camp
The Islanders felt a bit aggrieved that a solid afternoon's work
against one of the division's form sides failed to yield any
points. Six points down as the match at Rotherham entered added
time, the visitors had a useful bonus point and could even have
pilfered a cheeky win.
But Juan Pablo Socino's late penalty took his team out of range,
and Jersey had to be contented with reducing a 23-point margin of
defeat at Clifton Lane 12 months before to single figures.
Travelling reserve Mark Foster found himself promoted to the squad
on Saturday morning when Dai Bishop was injured, and Foster was
called on within 10 minutes after Drew Locke was forced off. It
remains to be seen whether Locke is fit to return to action, and
whether the experiment of playing Aaron Penberthy at full-back and
Grant Pointer in the centre is persisted with. Mark McCrea
impressed after moving to centre, but there will probably be fewer
changes in the pack.
The Jersey squad will be announced on Friday at 12noon.
Any previous?
Jersey hosted the Exiles on the final weekend of October, and
built up a 13-3 lead at half-time thanks to a Guy Thompson try
(captured below by Sue Trower) and eight points from the boot of
Booj. Things got even better for the home side when James Copsey
scored one of the best tries of the season, his finishing skill
matching fine approach play from team-mates.
A 17-point margin was surely too much
for the visitors? Well, in the end it was, but not before Scottish
had stormed back with tries in the 52nd (a PT) and 75th minute. The
second score, by Jim Thompson, gave just enough time for a winning,
or tying score, but Jersey held on. More details about the game are
available HERE.
In early March on a sunny afternoon at the RAG, Jersey trailed
14-12 at the break after tries by Ed Dawson and Max Stelling
answered one by Adam Kwasnicki, plus three James Love
penalties.
Tries by Charlie Clare and Guy Thompson in the third quarter
helped reduce the arrears to 27-26, but Miles Mantella supplemented
his earlier try with a second, and Mark Bright took the hosts out
of sight, helped by eight successful kicks by Love. Jersey did win
the try count 4-5 after a late Richard Barrington try, but it
finished 41-33. Full report HERE
London Scottish in 2013/14
The Exiles suffered a blow in the days leading up to their opening
league match when Director of Rugby Simon Amor was snapped up as
the new England Sevens supremo.
The new man in charge was ex-Forwards Coach James Buckland
(below), the 32-year-old former England U21 and Leicester hooker
who played in the 2007 Heineken Cup final and subsequently for
Wasps, London Irish and England Saxons before retiring through
injury.
Before he left, Amor oversaw a summer of transfer activity. His
signings included second row David Lyons from Cornish Pirates,
fly-half Lee Millar from Gala and no fewer than four Rotherham
Titans: prop Jamie Kilbane, hooker Ted Stagg and wingers Peter
Homan and Mike Doneghan.
The new faces joined some experienced campaigners: five members of
the Exiles' squad have played more than 40 games: hooker Adam
Kwasnicki, lock Alex Karonias, ultility back Ollie Grove and back
row men Mark Bright - the club captain - and Lewis Calder (below) -
son of Jim and nephew of Finlay.
The season opened with a 13-44 win against Ealing in the London
double-header, and the Exiles gave Bristol a fright at the Mem
before losing 31-18.
Four consecutive wins then ensued - a brace of league victories
over Nottingham and Plymouth, and cup success over London Welsh and
Edinburgh Accies.
Since then fortunes have dipped, with Rotherham edging a tight
affair at the RAG (23-24) and then Cornish Pirates claiming a
Friday night home win by 16-8 - Mantella, who faced Jersey twice in
2011/12 while with Rosslyn Park, claimed the only try, his sixth of
the season in the league (plus two in the Cup), and Millar added a
penalty to take his season's Championship tally with the boot to
35.
History of London Scottish FC
Like many fine institutions, London Scottish FC was formed in a
pub, namely Mackay's Tavern in the City of London on April 10th
1878. The club adopted the colours they still wear to this day,
albeit with fewer sponsors' logos, and in the first season were
captained by their Chairman, Begbie Gibson.
The first season featured 15 matches, and three of the opposing
clubs are still in existence - Wasps, Twickenham and Guy's
Hospital. Bill MacLagan captained the club in the 1880s for five
seasons and was the first player to win a cap for Scotland.
The club continued to thrive adding respected opponents like
Oxford and Cambridge Universities and Harlequins to the fixture
list and after a short period at Lee and then Brondesbury, moved to
Old Deer Park in Richmond as tenants of Richmond Cricket Club and
then in 1894 to their present ground the Richmond Athletic Ground,
which they share with Richmond Football Club.
The club prospered, establishing an excellent playing reputation
and attracting many fine players who represented their country,
some of whom went onto play for the British Lions. In fact since
the club was formed, this heritage has produced in the region of
220 Scottish Internationals and the same number of Lions captains
as Leicester Tigers with four (MacLagan, David Bedell-Sivright in
1903/4, Mike Campbell-Lamerton in 1966 and Gavin Hastings -
pictured below - in 1993).
Other Scottish internationals worthy of mention include a
proliferation of back-row men - Mike Biggar, Rob Wainwright, Derek
White and Ian Smith - as well as Paul Burnell, Alastair McHarg,
Allan Lawson and Kenny Logan. Logan scored the last try of his
competitive career for Scottish in December 2005 in a fiery
encounter against Richmond, won 27-25 by the landlords.
The club began the league era in 1987 at level two, and by 1998
were a fully-professional unit playing in the Premiership. However
this was also the season that the professional club went into
administration, necessitating a year out while the original club
was reformed and placed into Herts/ Middlesex Division One (level
nine) in 2000.
Four successive promotions kick-started the revival, and in the
past six seasons Scottish have been promoted on three further
occasions to return to their original status when the leagues began
25 years previously. An eventful journey, with the most
extraordinary episode being the last-minute interception try that
secured promotion from National One at Barking's expense. Two and a
half years later the incident is still on Youtube, if you missed it, and
Barking are still in the national
leagues, but only just.
Following the Game
Don't forget that you can keep up-to-speed with news from London
Scottish v Jersey through the following channels:
• Preview on BBC Radio Jersey on Friday from 5.30pm, and live
commentary on Sunday afternoon (available online and on your
transistor-wireless device).
• Preview in Friday's JEP, and full match coverage on Monday
• Scoreflashes on @jerseyrfc Twitter and the 'Rolling Maul' rugby
forum
• Match preview on Channel 103 on Saturday afternoon
• Reports and match action on Channel TV online and on Monday
evening at 6.15pm; and on BBC Channel Islands on Monday evening at
6.30pm
The Greene King IPA Championship this
weekend
Partly due to the November internationals, and partly just the way
the fixture cookie has crumbled, there is just one Saturday
afternoon game, the (quite far apart) Midlands Derby between
Moseley and Nottingham at Billesley Common. Both sides will be
looking to follow up important wins last weekend. The previous
night Ealing host their second successive home game, looking to go
one better than the 6-15 reverse against Moseley. It is
Trailfinders' seventh game of the season, the same mark as had been
reached in 2012/13 when Jersey won their first game - against
London Scottish.
The above sees four fixtures left for Sunday afternoon. Aside from
the Exiles against Jersey, the others include two top-four clashes:
London Welsh host Bristol at the Kassam, while Rotherham travel up
the M1 for a Yorkshire Derby against Leeds at Headingley. The final
game is Bedford's trip to the Mennaye to take on the Pirates
And Finally
Local rugby action is headlined by Jersey Athletic's Zoo Sports
Shield encounter with Esher Cardinals, one of just two side above
the Island side in the table. The game at St Peter is at 12noon,
and will be followed by lunch in the clubhouse accompanied by
England v Argentina (k-o 2.30pm) on the big screens. Those with
stamina will also have earmarked Wales v South Africa at
5.30pm.
Other scheduled matches this weekend include two on Saturday:
Jersey 2nds v LQ Lydian Lions at Les Quennevais on Sunday at 12noon
(24 hours later than the original time) and Beeches making their
Guernsey tour for two JRA league games - Saturday against Guernsey
2nds and the following day against St Jacques.
I close by swapping rugby for dancing. This was the route trodden
by ex-England wing Ben Cohen, who missed the 2003 World Cup reunion
on Saturday because of his Strictly Come Dancing commitments.
As Johnno, Johnny and Sir Clive paraded around Twickers, Cohen
was strutting his stuff, topless, in a sizzling Paso Doble routine
(shown above) in front of millions of TV viewers. He was praised by
Times sports columnist Giles Smith praised Cohen's "continued
resistance to the waxing that is endemic to this sport. True, this
means his chest hair has to be plastered down with a claggy mixture
of make-up and baby oil, giving large swathes of the surface the
appearance of the banks of the Thames at low tide. However, that's
not the point. The point is that Cohen is single-handedly standing
up for hairiness in an increasingly shaven world."
The rugby to dancing path is being trodden next week by yours
truly in the Strictly Jersey contest in aid of Children in Need.
The line-up includes seven other amateur dancers, including BBC
Jersey's Sports Correspondent Tim Pryor, who will take to the floor
barely 24 hours after finishing his broadcasting duties in
Richmond. Wish us luck, and hold the baby oil...
Enjoy your weekend's rugby!
Tom Innes
