Building on the recent first and second team tour to la belle France, Richard Bell’s Mighty Green Machine spent last weekend further strengthening the entente cordiale with a weekend tour to Avignon.
Boasting a touring party of no fewer than 34 (mainly) English yeomen, bolstered by a smattering of our Celtic cousins, la Puissante Machine Verte was there to play in a veterans’ tournament, hosted by Le Rugby Club Pauloussie.
Having travelled and prepared with an early night on Friday, the merry band, led by coach and grand fromage Dave Raywood, turned up for the tournament at the ungodly hour of 9am, early starts being de rigueur in those parts due to the extreme heat.
As well as the boys in green, the tournament involved eight French teams and FC Barcelona. It soon became clear that the MGM’s cunning plan to ensure that its 25 playing members included ten props wasn’t perhaps ideal for a game with non-contested scrums and very limited line-outs due to a non-kicking rule.
Anyway, playing five games between 9.30 am and about 1.30pm, in increasingly hot conditions, while not troubling the trophy presentation, the MGM did not disgrace itself.
The tournament was hard fought and the third half, as our continental friends call the after-match festivities, was in the finest rugby traditions. Lots of singing, lots of silly games, and plenty of cold beer. The experience of singing “Swing Low” with a group of Frenchmen was certainly a first for your correspondent.
The Machine’s hosts did them proud, providing an enormous post-match lunch of white wine and mussels in a creamy, mustard sauce – our touring chef Tony Bonner was seen taking notes – before later providing lifts to a “Garden party en blanc”, a white-themed party at the Chateau St Maurice.
A fantastic time was had by all and, after a day of cultural sightseeing on Sunday, followed by a meal and a final sing-song in the main square in Avignon, the tour party returned home, largely unscathed on Monday morning.
This was a tour in the finest rugby traditions, featuring no fewer than seven tour virgins in a party which represented the club impeccably while having boatloads of fun and creating memories that will last forever. Chapeau to all involved in organising and to our gracious hosts – merci mes freres.
