The forecast was grim yet the sky remained a frustrating, cloudless blue when the Old Bar Clams’ rugby union coach, Tim Tout started doing his rain dance at Richard Crook Field.
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Right on time, just as they were about to kick off against the unbeaten Wallamba Bulls on Saturday afternoon, the clouds rolled in “nice and dark and wet”, as Tout put it, “and it kept drizzling for most of the game.”
In his wildest dreams, Tout could not have imagined conditions more perfect for a burial, perhaps not the Clams’ for a change, he thought, not another 50-point funeral for the seasiders. And the depression stayed there, camped over the Tasman Sea, crouched and ugly like a transplanted Hunchback of Notre Dame, sulking and spewing rain along the coast.
“Wallamba are warm-weather footballers. They like to run the ball, throw it around,” Tout said.
“I was crying out for rain, praying for it, anything to break our drought. Our ground is clay-based and gets slippery in rain, and it was icy. I thought it was our best chance to beat ‘em.
“Very early on our fullback Travis Oakley put in a kick and chase, regathered and passed to our half, Kodie Ping, who scored. It all happened in a flash, before they were aware of what was happening. That was the start we wanted.
“Our goal-kicker, Ben Petrisic, knocked over the conversion, and kept knocking them over – five in a row. He’s not a long-range kicker, but a good close kicker, and he kept popping them through the sticks.“
By the end of a tension-filled, enthralling encounter, three tries a side, Petrisic’s goals meant the difference in the Clams’ momentous 27-26 victory.
“I wasn’t sure how long it had been since our last win,” Tout continued. “We had a draw with Myall Mud Crabs last season, but Ben had an off-day. Our club hero, Richard Crook, put us right – we won six years ago. We did it on the field the council named after him - Crooky. Six winters! Can you believe it?
“It took courage for the club to come back, to close our doors for a season and start again. That showed guts. That’s what this club is made of – guts!”
Following the game, Tim Tout was talking to two of Wallamba’s senior officials when one fumed: “I can’t see this happening again!”
Always the straight-shooter, Tout told him: “Get used to it, mate!” Later, at the Old Bar Taverna, Ben Petrisic was named Old Bar’s man-of-the-match with centre Jake Thurling receiving two points for his two tries and, due to the game’s significance, every member of the team winning one point.
In the twilight of a grand career, newest Life Member and former MNC Axeman hooker, Teia Ambrosoli, was entitled to have a few more than his usual quota of rum and cokes and then as the club’s “Plan B”, be shouted a taxi home.
They don’t award the V.C. for rugby union., the Croix-de-Guerre or the Military Cross, but the Clams have shed enough blood over the years to have deserved a beer and burgher on the house at the Tavern.
There will be no rugby union this Long Weekend. Tomorrow week’s (June 16) round nine games are between the Forster-Tuncurry Dolphins and Gloucester Cockies at Gloucester; Wallamba against the Manning River Ratz at Nabiac; with Old Bar having the bye.