2024 Tour games: Cheltenham RFC and Torquay Athletic RFC

The annual BPRFC Tour games were hosted by Torquay Athletic RFC this year, and with touring club Cheltenham also in attendance, it was nicely set for a 3-team round robin.

With a bit of confusion on the location of the games to kick things off, the team finally all got to the same pitch for a warm up before the 11am kick off. However, watching the boys walk their warm-up run round the pitch sort of told us enough of where the boys' heads were after a fun, but tiring few days of burning the candle at both ends!

With Connor sadly sitting the games out with his knee still playing up (although you wouldn't have thought that with some of the dance moves he performed on both Friday and Saturday night) Broad Plain had 16 players at its disposal. It was as good a turn out that we have seen all season, and with recently-joined Jacob also there, you could be excused for thinking we would put in two excellent performances. However, the candle-burning exploits could be to their playing detriment, and only time would tell with the two back-to-back games.

First up was Cheltenham, and the writing was pretty much painted in very big letters on the wall, with 29 players at THEIR disposal.

Josh got the proceedings underway, and the game was afoot ( I refer you to Mike's excellent joke on Saturday night, pointing Heather out to John and asking him who she was meant to be, to which John naturally replied 'Sherlock'. Mike's response: No shit! )

The game then played out with Cheltenham dominating the first half, although Broad Plain did manage to get on the scoresheet with Zayd going on one of his trademark runs, and at one point had 3 Cheltenham players hanging off him as he charged towards the try line. Sadly, Josh missed the conversion from far out wide, but almost made a full-pitch try run, being finally tackled around the 22 line, but it meant that Cheltenham saw out the half 14-5, although Broad Plain were sort of still in it.

The second half was a lot better, and although Cheltenham scored early, Broad Plain hit back soon after with Jacob going over in the corner, and this time Josh was able to find his range, and so half way through the second half it was 19-12, and possibly there was a slight glimmer of hope. However, Cheltenham were a big, strong, quick and organised side, and with only 15 min halves (although the ref played 23 mins and 20 mins), time was not on Broad Plain's side, and Cheltenham crashed over for their 4th try, and although there was a late charge from Broad Plain it was Cheltenham who took the first win of the Tour 26-12.

It felt like that on their day, and not nursing sore/tired heads, the boys would have given a much better account of themselves, and probably run this a much closer race, but sadly it was the sore/tired heads that won out!

With Kyle and Graeme trying to rouse the boys in their short break before their next game against Torquay, you could sense that this second game could be hard work for the boys, but as always, you knew they were going to give it their all.

Josh again got proceedings underway for the second game against Torquay, and from the off you knew this was going to be a closer game.

Torquay finally scored though, after a good 8 mins play, with both teams enjoying some good possession. Then just before half time, Josh called over to the sideline saying that his knee wasn't right. At first sight it looked like his knee had been displaced as there was a huge lump just below his knee, but on closer inspection, it was a lump filled with fluid, and so he was replaced by Max, and it looked like that was going to be the end of Josh's tour duty.

Broad Plain then started to get into their rhythm a bit more, and Zayd crashed through just before half time, and with Josh off the pitch, up stepped Ryan to slot home the conversion from in front of the posts, and all of a sudden it was 5-7.

The final passage of play before half time saw both teams lose possession a bit, and it wasn't long before the ref blew his whistle to end the half's action.

With Josh still off the pitch, Leo took the kick to get the second half underway, and the next 8 mins or so played out pretty much the same as the first half, with both teams having good possession, but tired legs (and heads) from the Broad Plain team gave Torquay the edge. Sadly, Mckenzie then took a knock to the head and had to come off, and although Torquay were asked to go down to 14 players, they put a player on who had never had any game time, so although you could say it was still relatively even, they did have a one-player advantage. And so, it played out that way, with more players out wide, they finally got it out to one of the borrowed Cheltenham players, and having given 4 of their best players for the game, one of their rapid wingers was able to dive in at the corner. With the conversion missed, it was now 10-7, with little over 2 mins to play.

However, at the restart Broad Plain were able to bundle the Torquay player over for a line out on Broad Plain's 22 line. With the ref calling 'last play', it was up to the boys to see if they could get all the way up the other end of the pitch and steal the win from the jaws of defeat....and they almost did! In a passage of play that saw at least 10 phases, Broad Plain rallied and dug deep to get all the way up to Torquay's 22 line before sadly it was ripped out in a ruck, and Torquay gladly kicked the ball over the dead ball line to end the game, leaving the Broad Plain players dead on their feet.

And so ended the Tour's action for another year, with the fun and frolics of the weekend probably being remembered over the rugby games, but then arguably that is the right way round...

So, with just one last game to play before the season is brought to a close, hopefully the boys can give a good account for themselves against Cleeve on Friday night...and at least they would have had a week's rest by then, and hopefully less alcohol in their systems!

#WHOAREWE