3rd July - Aberdeen (STS rd 3)

Summary by our very dear Sule

Superhands attended the 3rd tournament of Scottish Touch Series with 15 team members which took place in Aberdeen last weekend. After a fast but safe trip we arrived at our official residence in Aberdeen, “Thomson mansion” on Friday night. Although the night was short we had time to have a delicious dinner (prepared by Doug), to play chess (doesn’t matter who won, does it Rob?), to have a dram of a cask strength single malt (thank you Sidney!), a glass of wine or a pint of beer and to have some nice chat; briefly we had time to do something unrelated to ‘touch rugby’.

Waking up to a beautiful, sunny Aberdeen morning the squad got together at the Woodside pitches at 9.00 am. If we don’t count the three ‘unfaithful’ mates, the team was ready with 12 people (6 boys and 6 girls) for the tournament. The first game was against Genesis and not losing against them but losing Maddy due to an injury at the very beginning was unlucky for us. Our esteemed captain Ruth immediately intervened in the situation and with the valuable comments of Doug, Dave, Dunkan, Lesley-Anne and Matt (he is the youngest member of the squad but he knows a lot!), we improved our play significantly both in defense and attack in every other game. We played as a ‘team’ and won following three games against Leopards too, BP Panthers and NHS with 19 touchdowns in total.

Our glory had a break with the team called ‘Stags’ which includes our ‘unfaithful’ mates. Although we lost the game, all agreed that we played our best game of the tournament against them. It was the game which we had so many supporters (Glasgow Lions and Genesis players were all there to cheer for us), which our coach was leading the opponents (Pierre, it still hurts remembering you were calling some ‘unfamiliar’ names as shooters), which RobLee never got tired (why do I see RobLee putting the ball down on our try line whenever I close my eyes) and which Freshy scored two tries against Superhands by feeling “soo bad” afterwards.

We beat Leopards in the semi-final but lost against Genesis one more time in drop offs in the final. However, everything could have been different if Sidney simply put the ball down when he crossed the try line rather than changing his direction within the try lines and run into the opponent, crashed into him and lose his conscious for a wee bit .

We had a beautiful night after the tournament, having BBQ and drinking over the fines with Dave’s unique vocalization. When we think of the entire day, Matt and Stuart will be remembered for their amazing shootings and uncountable scores, Maddy for her valuable support and being so cool with a break in her arm, Ruth and Lesley-Anne for being our dedicated referees and mids, a very good captain and a lovely host, Jo for scoring the first try of the team in the tournament and covering for her sub body (Maddy) perfectly, Sidney and Dunkan beside their great effort both in defense and attack, for colliding each other as usual which resulted in more damage to Sidney, Doug for his great coaching, scores and valuable passes ended with scores (one of them was to me ), Jen for being so fit, chasing the opponent until making the touch and being a fine master, Dave for calming us down before the game against Stags and saying that “we know how they will play, we are coached by the same guy; it will be a vocal game, RobLee will scoop, the only thing we should do is just concentrate on the short side defense” and being the only one who was so close to score against Stags, myself scoring my first official try, shouting as ‘my corneeeer’ until I lose my voice and maybe my hair , and finally Pierre, RobLee and Freshy for being ‘unfaithful’ to all of us.

Team composition

Women: Ruth (captain), Maddy, LA, Jo, Jen, Sule
Men: Doug, Matt, Stuart, Dave, Sidney, Dunkan