The main question I imagine most people would want to know the answer to is exactly how did the 3XV lose the cup final against Hackney 3XV? And this would be a reasonable question, and one with lots of different answers no doubt. But before I get into the details of why we lost, it is important to give you the back drop of the season if unfamiliar; The 3XV were promoted into league 5 and have played 18, won 17 , scored over a hundred tries and finished with a points difference of +513. We are used to being in the lead after 10 minutes, scoring in every quarter and mixing Physical brutality with sweet finesse, but almost always winning.
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So how did we lose? They scored more points than us? Not good enough ! Nobody likes to come up with excuses for defeat because it looks weak and a weak excuse on its own doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but put all these excuses together and they can become something that can influence the outcome, the momentum changers, the 1%ers that go some way to explaining why the 3XV were undercooked when the Cup Final kicked off.
1. Quite a few players had hangovers.
2. The Lucozade for the coach journey there got forgotten.
3. We set off 20 minutes late and hit traffic making us even later.
4. We found out Hackney had arrived 2 hours before kick off.
5. Our Coach wasn’t allowed into Fullerians and so we had to walk quite a distance with all our kit.
6. We then had to lug all our kit to our pitch because the changing rooms weren’t lockable and our coach was miles away. Our pitch, needless to say was the furthest away.
7. It was really hot and sunny.
8. We had to delay kick off because we weren’t ready
9. The player form had been forgotten by Chiltern and had to be done just before kick off at a tent 3 pitches away, further delays.
10. The extra warm up time Chiltern got given got cut by 5 minutes, and we kicked off.
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The reason we lost was due to a slow start, we were 3 tries down in 15 minutes and the above list certainly contributed to the sense of chaos and nervous anticipation that you get on finals day anyway. So I think this is a classic case of losing the game before we even walked on the pitch! But we came back into it and scored 3 tries to 1 in the second half, finishing the game very much with the upper hand. It was great to see the passion for the shirt one last time this season, and Hackney were being reeled in ! But the first 15 minutes had killed any hope of a comeback and we ran out of time.
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It has been a long season but a very successful season, and I think we can be forgiven for taking the foot off the gas this one time. One tradition that continues are the Cup Final stories of heroic tragedy! And of course, the stories of legendary booze ups afterwards.
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Match Report words: Doug Smith
Match Photo: Sarah Hammond