Monday's Musings

Coach Manning reflects on the “first half” of the season.

Castaway Wanderers Coach Scott Manning, Saturday November 28, 2020 at Windsor Park looking over a group of 30 CW Men having a final training session with touch.  

(And now some reflections from The Sage on the Sidelines).  “Since September the coach and his cohorts have run the lads every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Without contact and weekend games due to COVID it has been an unusual, to say the least, half year for CW at all levels…men, women, junior girls, junior boys and minis.  Unusual for sure….a disaster…..far, far from it.  CW from September to December has been brilliant.  It has brought out the best throughout the Club.  Zoom calls and countless CW volunteer hours to set up what was needed to run training starting in September with coaches and managers and other volunteers setting up all the sessions to be safe and enjoyable.  About the players; players sticking to safe behaviours; staying home if feeling a bit ill; doing attestations every morning before every session and poking fun at each other perhaps more than usual. 

Be assured that the Club will focus on doing whatever is necessary to get a green light for contact and games as soon as we are given that opportunity.  Be assured CW will be running together again in January 2021, as we put this COVID thing as far back in our rear view mirror as possible.  

It is a ‘strange’ time indeed.  In the early COVID days there was a bit of relief perhaps, less stress than the usual.  No worries about injuries; who will replace the ones not available and will they be ok playing at a higher level?  Will the front row be ok for Saturday; will everyone make the ferry on time; will the rain make the field unplayable?  We must win on Saturday - the super highs of winning a close well-fought match; the super lows of losing a game ‘’we should have won’’.

Yet while the collective ‘we’ may not have those stresses and worries at the moment, some of us find it is exactly those things that build and maintain our love of the game, of the Club and of each other.  COVID has taken away what we love - the good and the bad, the highs the lows.  Yet when it all comes back we are gonna love it even more than ever.

When I next raise a beer at the ‘’Temple'' post-match, Saturday I will love all the escapades, the highs and lows, that brought us all to that day and time.  I’ll embrace the same weekly build-up that will recommence when I wake Sunday morning.  I think I will love it all more than ever before!”

(Ed.  Sounds like the i.d. of The Sage has been disclosed by someone who wears Tricolours on his sleeve!)

CW Junior’s Product, Sophie De Goede, makes good in the Bigs!

Soph continues to impress in the U.K.  Sophie started for the second week in a row and scored her first professional try when Sarries defeated Bristol. 36 – 10 this past weekend.  ‘Onya, Soph.