Sendoff In The Park

It's been couple of years since I last went to the O₂ Scrum In The Park, and it was good to see another event advertised this year, so the public could meet the squad and give them a good sendoff to the Rugby World Cup.

There were all sorts of events going on during the afternoon, such as Meet the Players to get autographs, training sessions for kids with the team, face painting, competitions etc. It's great to be interested in a sport where the players are so accessible - I can't see it happening with the England football team any time soon! I did feel a bit sorry for Jonny Wilkinson [left], who was inevitably the centre of attention - he needed about 5 minders to keep the groupies away! He seemed to be bearing it with remarkable good grace, however.

Other players who I saw pottering about included the midfielders Jamie Noon, Matthew Tait, and Andy Farrell (who also seemed popular with the autograph hunters).

Prop Matt Stevens and second row Steve Borthwick [right] were putting the kids through their paces at rucking practice. A tad unfair since they could probably both have lifted up the kids with one hand, and were trying to get them to lever 110Kg of Forward off the ball!

Entertainment was provided by a marching band, looking splendid in their Dress Reds and enormous Busbies. I wasn't entirely convinced by the Gospel Choir, mind you. Although they were much better than the crowd at singing Swing Low!

At least the Sign For England bus was a success - a double-decker where you could sign your message of support to the boys, all over the outside:

[my contribution on the side of the Sign For England bus]

The finale was a little bit of a letdown - the team were paraded onto the pitch and stood under the posts whilst Austin Healey quizzed Brian Ashton and Phil Vickery. Then they sang Swing Low and fired a load of streamers at the team:

[the England boys attempt to unravel themselves from the red and white streamers]

Would have been nice if they'd let them have a final lap round the pitch to wave to the spectators, but they were ushered off again quite quickly. Oh, well - I'll see them on Saturday in Lens! Can't believe my RWC trip has come round so quickly. You can see the rest of my photos from this year's Scrum In The Park.

Brizzle Top The Table

Newly-promoted Bristol surprised everybody (and themselves!) by beating Wasps at the weekend, to go top of the Guinness Premiership.

And there they will remain for a couple of weeks while the clubs have a fortnight of Anglo-Welsh Cup hiatus during the next two weekends.

Saracens, meanwhile, are floating in 9th place, (a familiar position from last season), after their loss to the Sharks on Friday evening. :-(

They are away to London Irish this coming weekend, then host Cardiff Blues at Vicarage Road on 8th October. I plan to be at both matches, so there should be some new images on rugbypix.com in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, here's a photo from Saracens' home game against Bristol from last season, a bit of a muddy affair from memory.

Andy Gomarsall has also been on the move again, signing with Quins until the end of the season, after being unceremoniously dropped by Worcester, one year into a 3-year contract.

Here's a photo of him at the 2005 Scrum In The Park England training session, with Sevens coach Mike Friday.

And I forgot to add them earlier, but a small selection of my photos from the London Double Header are now on Flickr.

Scrum In The Dark

Last August, O2, sponsors of England Rugby, held the Scrum In The Park (you can see my photos here) event where the public could see the squad train and all sorts of other exciting stuff.

This morning, it occurred to me that we haven't heard about a similar event for 2006, which is a great shame. Despite torrential showers last time, the crowd seemed to enjoy themselves and it was great to meet some of the players afterwards. Danny Grewcock signed my shirt for me - and I was still wearing it :-D

There is an email address given on their website, so I thought I would ask if there are any plans for this year. A few minutes after sending it, I got a bounce - no such address as scrum@o2.com. Oh well.


Here's Danny after last year's training session, looking a little sweaty. No comment.

New Flickr Sets

The summer hiatus has given me the chance to upload some more pictures to Flickr, mainly from pre-summer 2005 games. The sets are:

• 2004-2005 Best Of The Rest
• Rugby-Related Events (including the 2005 Scrum In The Park)
• British & Irish Lions vs Argentina, May 2005

With each image, there's also a link to the appropriate match photos on rugbypix.com, in case you want to see more.

With last year's successful Scrum In The Park enjoyed by everyone, despite the rain, I was wondering if a similar event is planned for this year. Checking their website still gives "news" on last year's event, sadly. Anyone know any more up to date info?