"I Told You So"

Cuckoos 13- Freeport 47

Oh, what a calamity, Ohh what a good old fashion cut behind the Cuckoos received on Saturday, 8th December 2007, at the Winton Rugby Pitch by the Freeport Rugby Club.
The match started once again with the Cuckoos shorthanded, again due to the disgusting, don’t care, wanted to be begged attitude of some Cuckoos. Seven minutes into the match, Freeport scored a good looking try in the corner but failed to convert, giving them an early 5-0 lead. Minutes later, Andrew Bain snagged a lineout 15 meters out. The Cuckoos mauled the ball beautifully over the try line that resulted in hooker Mario Rolle scoring a try equaling the score due a missed conversion.  Minutes later, thanks to the foot of a Brian Baker penalty from 40 meters out the Cuckoos took the lead 8-5. But relentless Freeport began to display their superior fitness by beating the Cuckoos to the loose balls, and taking loose balls from the Cuckoos, as the lead looking legs of the Cuckoos began to wither. Freeport began to run aggressively, hard and fast at the Cuckoos only to be stopped from scoring a try by young Kevin, who made a try saving open field tackle, a tackle that the referee called high, “ a very questionable call” that cost the Cuckoos 3 points via a penalty kick, a tackle that saved the Cuckoos 4 points thanks to Kevin. Twenty-nine minutes into the half, the Cuckoos again took a 13-8 lead on a smart play by veteran winger Jon Issacs and flyhalf Brian Baker, who passed the ball back and forth between them to beat 3 Freeport players, with Baker finally putting the ball down in the corner. The conversion failed. Nevertheless, the Freeporters stormed back scoring 2 tries and 1 conversion to take a 20-13 half time lead.
            The second half was nothing short of disgraceful. Although the scrums were good, the tight mauls were fair, good at best, in the other parts of the game the Cuckoos seemed clueless; dropping balls left, right and center, poor passing, extremely poor judgment, poor tackling, log looking players who lumbered and laboured, who tried yet unable to get to a breakdown. Led by our own international star Jamaal Curry, who simply stunk up the pitch with his stooley play, as Freeport piled on the score making the final score 47-13 Freeport. Yet the score could have been much worse if it was not for the young C. R. Walker student Kevin, who made 3 open field try saving tackles that made him the Cuckoos’ man of the match, while Jon Issacs received honorable mention.

After the match, during an attempt to discuss what went wrong, John Gates and Aaron Bethel exploded with anger and understandably so, as the both felt let down, betrayed and disgusted with the attitude of some t of our members have adopted towards the game, particularly the lack of numbers at practice and the indifferent attitude before and after games. You were forewarned about the contagious, cancerous, crippling and possibly dismantling of this Club if the above-mentioned attitude is not changed. Although the season is fairly young, I Believe we have reached a crossroad, and its time that monkey put question to its mammy. I know many players in the club have contributed endless time and energy trying to build this club. I know of people who spend thousands of their personal monies on the club just to keep this club floating without wanting personal acknowledgment. These people also have a life outside of Rugby. These people also have things to do. To have members who clearly display their action that they don’t give a damn if we have enough players to start a match, members who loyalties and seriousness to help strengthen this club, must now be questioned. The question must be asked, what purpose do these ones serve to this noble club? I believe this good old fashion cut skin is good for us. It’s a good reality check, and we must learn something from this, and if we truly care about the strengthening and the improvement of this club, a vast improvement at the practice will be seen, practice as we know, as adults, is the foundation of any sporting club. Therefore, Captain Baker, I strongly suggest and encourage you to let it be known to all those members who continue to find flimsy reasons, unsatisfied excuses why they cant conform to the Cuckoos’ and your policies, for the betterment of the club, that they fish, if they can’t fish, cut bait, if they can’t cut bait, get the hell out of the boat. Then again, that’s my opinion.

Report by Chairmen 'Mac' McCartney