A World Without a WebMonkey

It was a strange experience, watching Boroughmuir without the Senior WebMonkey beside me. Since we began work on the website in December ’99 there can’t have been more than a dozen games we’ve not attended together. I suppose we could be thought of as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, though I tend to think of us as Dumb and Dumber.

Of course, the fact that I got to see ’Muir hand out a thumping lesson to what was a relatively young Glasgow Hawks side in many ways made up for the strangeness. Had I been presented with another match as soul-crushingly disappointing as the Currie game, I think I’d have felt a lot more jealous of the Mediterranean sun beating down on the WebMonkey’s balding bonce.

For most of the first half I thought we might be in for another slice of defeat pie, we seemed to be making a lot of the same mistakes, although at least not in the same quantities. And had the referee not obviously thought he was in charge of a football match and played a, quite franky, ridiculous amount in injury time, we might not have got the chance to learn the lessons we did.

The main of those lessons was that, when we execute our basics well, we can exhibit pace and power that is difficult to live with. During the second half we held onto passes more often than not, the ball carrier was well supported and the possession quickly recycled and we averaged a try every 5.7 minutes. OK, so you won’t get that high a return every week, but as we proved last season we will at least give ourselves every opportunity to win.

I think the most surprising thing about the weekend, however, wasn’t the realisation of just how much work it takes to get the website done when you’re doing it alone. It was the shock of hearing the result from the Ayr-Watsonians game. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that Ayr won at Millbrae wasn’t a surprise, it was the nature of just how they jamspangled a Watsons side which included international lock forward Jim Hamilton. To be honest, I don’t see Selkirk keeping up the pace they’ve set on their return to the top flight, but if Ayr get a couple more wins under their belt then they’ll have to be considered the most serious of contenders.