The Diner's Rookie Diary
by Sam Monson
26/6/2008
 
This entry for the rookie diary revolves around preparation for our “Win and you're in” match with the Belfast Bulls. With the regular season nearly finished, we find ourselves in a position to secure a playoff appearance with a win. Our fate is in our own hands, and the atmosphere around the team for the last couple of weeks suggests everybody knows it.
 
Our first week of training between games saw us diverted to the Astro pitches, because of all things, the Gay Rugby World Cup had commandeered our regular training pitch.
 
This meant a date with blisters, everybody's favourite treat. The Astro pitches we play on are of the 'plastic grass with rubber balls everywhere' variety. Fall on this stuff and you'll skin yourself bare in an instant, and even if you manage to keep upright for the duration of training, you'll be picking bits of rubber out of everything for the next week. On one occasion I made the foolish mistake of putting my helmet down, only to put it back on, put my mouthpiece back in, and nearly choke myself to death on the 50 rubber balls that had stowed away inside the gum shield.
 
If you're looking for an Astro tip – don't put your mouthpiece down...
 
The QB, Centre and receivers separated and began to go through our usual repertoire of routes, before discovering that running out routes on a pitch enclosed by a steel cage had one rather obvious drawback... This isn't one of your chain link fences that'll give either...you run into this thing and you're liable to come out the other side sliced like pancetta.
 
It turns out that running out routes caused the biggest case of alligator arms and fence watching you'll ever see. With the ball in the air the only thing any of the receivers were looking at was how close they were to braining themselves on the steel fence.
 
Scrimmage ended with a brief scare to our QB, who ended up becoming the filling in a sandwich between steel fence and defensive tackle. With both our backup passers already injured, the last thing we needed was our signal caller going down.
 
After the practice, Coach headed off with a few players for a scouting mission – to tape the Bulls who were down in Dublin playing the team that had beaten us twice, the Dublin Rebels. We were hoping to get an idea not only of how they played, but also of how close to us they were by their performance against the Rebels. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the Bulls travelled with a bare bones team, which was on the receiving end of a bit of a kicking. We might have learned how they like to line up, but we're unlikely to be able to tell much from the players that played.
 
The week between training sessions saw summer end, dramatically. After a period of glorious sunshine, the powers that be had decided that Ireland had experienced its share of summer by mid June, and we were back to freezing cold, grey, rainy skies. By the time Sunday training came around I was in the midst of a cold, but there was one thing getting me out of bed and heading back across the city, to the north side (shudder). Coach had promised us a 'pleasant surprise' at training.
 
Believe me, I had checked the email to make sure of the word 'pleasant'. Simply being promised a 'surprise' would have conjured up enough images of 'surprise' 5 mile runs in my mind to have me diving under the duvet and not coming up until July. But no, the promise of a pleasant surprise was just enough to get me to haul my carcass to training on time.
 
So what was this surprise? New training gear? New footballs? A celebrity guest? Strippers for all? No.
 
Hell no.
 
Geoff, one of our players that had been absent during his final year of school's exams, had returned!! Hooray!!
 
Good as that is for the team, I have to admit, I've had better surprises.
 
Still, stiff upper lip and all that. The rain had stopped, and all that was left was the kind of wind that could soon sort that leaning tower problem they've been having in Pisa. You know you need to put on a bit of weight when you're actually in danger of being blown over during stretching!
 
One entertaining aspect of the wind was it soon became apparent that it was possible to throw a curving pass if you got your angles right. There's a trick play in there somewhere...
 
Practice went well, and the Offense took on the Defense in a scrimmage to end the session. The improvement made on offense was clear in this scrimmage, with several touchdowns completed against a tough D, and that with Shane Maguire stepping in as an emergency running back. Your humble Diner reporter showed off some speed catching a slant route across the middle and then burning around the corner and up the sidelines for a nice catch and run touchdown.
 
All in all things are looking up at just the right time. The Offense finally looks like its ready to click in-game, and the Defense has been its usual nasty self. The DCU Saints are looking to head into this next game as a team, all pulling in the same direction. With everyone on this team fighting for the same thing, we stand a good chance of pulling out the win we need and playing playoff football.
 
Stay tuned to see if we can manage it. Feel free to send us messages of support Diner faithful!
 
Archive Rookie Diary:
Rookie Diary June 12th
Rookie Diary May 28th
Rookie Diary May 10th
Rookie Diary April 29th
Rookie Diary April 17th
Rookie Diary April 5th
Rookie Diary April 2nd