The Friday started well enough the whole touring party arriving on
time apart from a few stragglers who fell foul of Brett compound
fines system. When Jack got to the departure gate he realised
that changing into his best pulling jeans had been a mistake as
his old pair had the advantage of having his passport in them. So
off he went and wouldn’t be seen again until past midnight. It’s
unsure why we get seats as most of the party headed straight to
the train bar and we proceeded in the tradition of drinking the
bar dry. After plenty of banter a few songs broke out, and then
more and ruder ones started, when we were about 40 minutes from
Paris ruder and louder ones started. Soon a guard came through
asking of we could keep it down as 1st class had complained,
"petrol on the fire" is an expression they would do well to learn.
We disembarked and were met by our most excellent hosts and by a
variety of means we were whisked away to what can only be
described as the best/weirdest nightclub I have ever been to.
Some food appeared and beer flowed & flowed, a semi naked DJ
whipped the crowd up to the tunes. So around 1am then the oompah
band came out backed by house beats. RBS RFC bounced around the
floor with such energy surely we were the fittest team. Around
2.30am some older players thinking of coach Ollies words of wisdom
about not drinking before a game started leave, the younger fitter
ones carried on for somewhere between 30-270 minutes more. We
scattered across Paris with the CASO lads doing a great job of
getting us drunk and safely to bed.
Saturday started for most of us at some point before
midday, however that cannot be said of some who had to be tracked
down by various phone calls. We met at the beautiful CASO ground
to admire their rather well stocked trophy cabinet. Soon jugs
from the bar started to appear and get drunk by RBS, CASO had
found our weakness. A huge BBQ ensued and then at some point a
game of rugby broke out.
The game started and was quite closely contested with strong
running from both sides. Now by this stage my last drink was
starting to catch up with me so details are sketchy. I think...
from a line out we got the ball and spun it out and the looping
number 8 “little Jack” crashed over to take the lead. CASO hit
back flooding the ball with players and offloads, scoring twice.
RBS had the better of the scrums and driving mauls but in open
play CASO were first to the breakdown and stole lots of
possession. The second half quickly showed why Coach Ollie told
us to play snooker instead of drinking before the game and the
strength went out of everyone’s legs. Although we were
competitive until 20 minutes to go every time they made a break we
struggled to get cover tackles in and they started to score more
frequently.
However there were a couple of consolations, the first a try: The
club captain stuck up a box kick into the oppo 22, to which the
1st XV captain indelicately told him that was the wrong
option, the club captain pointed out with some impoliteness that
1st XV captain was better off chasing it than complaining, which
he duly did gathering the beautifully weighted kick and two quick
passes later we went under the posts, the captains then hugged and
made up. The second consolation was a peach of a punch by none
other than Youngy, feeling aggrieved at getting a punch he dealt
one out, however got completely the wrong man and poor CASO Fred
had to have stitches pitchside.
The post game revelry was second to none a beautiful meal in the
garden of the clubhouse was superb and was matched by a virgins
race with no fewer than 20 entrants. After various food stuffs
1.5 pints of red wine and lots of nakedness CASO were declared
winners but we are not sure why as we finished with most top 10
places. A fantastic speech by Rufus in fluent French proved that
he is not only a ginger but fast becoming a
Ginger (expect rambling phone calls to match the emails soon). We
then left by coach for a nightclub which was a quiet night except
for Gunnar thinking he deserved a throne to be pushed around on,
the bouncers did not share his view.
Sunday after some lovely lunchtime drinking we made the trip to
Gard Du Nore and a fond au revoir to our most excellent hosts.
Jim could not find a seat and but luckily some of the lads found
him some accommodation by stuffing him into the top of the luggage
rack. More drinking happened until we drew into St Pancras.
A wonderful weekend was had and I look forward to future trips.
Richard
RBS RFC Club Captain
PS - My hangover took a full 3 days to fully clear.
