Technically, the end of March/beginning of April is the month of the Ram, but supporters at the Club can be forgiven for feeling like it’s January 2019! Aside from our 1st XV breaking the all-time Club record by securing 16 league wins on the trot, there has been much else to celebrate.

Take last Saturday for instance: our rejuvenated Titans secured their third win in as many games and the Centaurs clocked-up a good victory against Newbury. And they had a surplus of players, even with the Dragon’s Teeth in action travelling away to Aylesbury, which hopefully signals that we have pulled-through our winter injury crisis.

On Sunday, I went along to watch the Sirens take on Basingstoke Beavers in a friendly. The last time the two sides met was at the end of the 16/17 season when there was lots of enthusiasm but much less organisation. What a contrast in the latest outing. The Beavers secured a 10-5 victory with a late try, and in fairness they probably deserved it, but both teams were excellent in defence, filling the space, demonstrating good line-speed and closing down the outside players. As I had been at the Basingstoke away game nearly two years ago it was a delight to see the progress that both groups of players have made. Katie Phillips and Amy Parsons are working wonders with our senior women’s team, and Luke Simpson and Mark Pett-Ridge are working wonders with our girls’ teams so that, like our men’s section, we are developing future Sirens players.

Outside of the senior men’s and ladies’ sections, I have watched all of our junior sides, bar the Under 14s (apologies guys, I will get along to one of your games soon) play over the last few weeks. It has been a real treat. The attitude of the players has been fantastic, the competition has been fierce and only matched by the camaraderie amongst our own sides, and with our opposition. I have seen some great skills throughout the teams including big strong forwards that can off-load, backs that straighten a line to maintain space, wonderful chop tackling and passes off the right and left hands. It is essential that players that want to reach their full potential have first class core skills. And if you want evidence of why this is important look no further than our winning try at Dry Leas on 5th January when two sides had battled it out for 80 minutes for what looked like being a 12-12 draw until our forwards put together 21 phases before our backs fired-off three sharp left-hand passes to give Jak Rossiter the opportunity to dance his way through for the winning try. All those hours of training and practice pay-off in one moment that makes the hard work worthwhile.

Rams’ Minis go from strength to strength, as anyone who witnessed the half-time tag tournament last Saturday will attest to. Six and seven year olds running around with the ball in two hands scoring lots of tries and, most importantly of all, having fun. Chris Stillman and the Mini coaching team and managers are doing a wonderful job and, hopefully, laying a foundation for the Club to build upon. After the 1st team’s record breaking win on Saturday, the senior players and minis had their picture taken under the posts. It’s a great shot (thank you Paul Clark) because everyone is just enjoying the moment. In 16 years’ time, I hope that some of the stars of our future Rams 1st team are also the stars of half-time last Saturday.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to everyone that made last weekend an incredible success. It kicked-off on Friday evening with a most magnificent Burns evening, expertly co-ordinated by Mike Gorman and Graeme Cook , whose exemplary address to the haggis was only matched by his father’s entertaining Immortal Memory. In between, Yvonne Pett-ridge read a brilliant poem in her reply to Shaun Sheppard’s lively toast to the lasses whilst Dr Chris Hodgson read a Burns love poem. The whisky was good too, and after a few drams I could almost believe that Mike Gorman (MC for the evening) and Andy Lynch (Selkirk Grace) were from north of the border, rather than Sunderland and Whitley!

After the success of Friday came the job of accommodating three home games in what was promising to be very inclement weather. My congratulations to Bill Gornall-King, Cath, and Ali Gadd and the under 14s for doing a first class job in managing car parking at OBR, and my congratulations to Hannah, Ady and all the bar and kitchen staff, and of course those volunteers in the new “Rams Shack”, for keeping our guests and visitors entertained and fed in the very best possible way.

On and off the pitch last Saturday was a great advert for what can be achieved when a good team pulls together.