Bristol Bisons RFC

Following the September game against the Police, the boys lifted their heads up  to travel to Edinburgh for the annual Edinburgh Rugby Clinic. The Clinic is an annual event organised by the Caledonian Thebans aiming to bring together teams from the United Kingdom and Europe.

The Group consisted of 15 guys which were both players and supporters. Many thanks to all the boys that travelled I know that it’s not a cheap thing.

I would like to share with you all what went on throughout the tour however we all know the rules ‘What goes on tour stays on tour...."

So on to what really matters:  Rugby.......

As a tradition with the Edinburgh clinic, it started off with a training session led by the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) coaches.

This allowed players to warm up, get over their hangovers and learn and develop their rugby skills. There were three different workshops during the morning session; 

One – Handling –

What a beautiful coach well that’s what I found out that there are some very good looking men in Scotland. Stating this, he was a very good coach who allowed players of all abilities to join in and work on handling skills during the training session.

Second – Game awareness /building confidence –

This allowed people to get a better knowledge and confidence to the game of rugby which included fun and games exercises.

Third – Tackling and position

This allowed people to get down and dirty and a little bit rough, however I know that players learnt a lot and came out with a better understanding of both tackling and position.

So to the rugby games

Well I say Games... we were originally told that we were going to be playing only against Edinburgh due to the number of participants. In the after a very  tough game against Edinburgh,  we were challenged by Newcastle.

The Game against Edinburgh was 13 a side which meant more pitch to cover. The game was mostly a forward's game. The Bisons were lead by the forwards and the captain of the tour and it was clear that the Bisons were on top form.

I would also add that we had a number of players playing out of their normal position, but I think we have found ourselves some new playing positions for a couple of the team.

We took the lead by scoring 2 tries before allowing one  in, to make it 2 tries to 1. A successful one out of two conversions increased our points lead to 7.

The forwards continued to dominate the game however when the backs got the ball they showed their skill-   it was not just the forwards that displayed how to play with the ball. We continued to score tries and pressured the Edinburgh line, this even ended up with a massive high tackle on one of our centres; one of the injured players took the ball over the line before having to leave the pitch.

It was a hard but rewarding game which I know that each players has learnt a lot from, including a new off the ball move from the Bisons backs known as  ‘Bison Shimay’. Final score: Bisons-Edinburgh 32-10

After the game we were all pleased with  our performance and the result. On another pitch, Newcastle were playing a Barbarian team in 10’s. Newcastle won and challenged us on to settle which team would come on top and win the Edinburgh Clinic Trophy

The boys thought about it and there was only one way.

We were going to play Newcastle at 10’s.

The game started with both teams thinking that they were going to win. Bisons scored first with the team working together. This was followed by another try but Newcastle pulled one back with some fancy footwork.

The Bisons took it up a level and score again twice and it looked like that the Bisons had done enough to win. Newcastle stayed strong until the end and scored  back to back, which led to an nail-biting finish: 4 Bisons' tries to Newcastle's three. With some lucky kicking the Bisons were ahead by 26-17. which was the final score.

The final whistle meant that Bristol Bisons were the champions of the Edinburgh Rugby Clinic for 2010. This was the first silverware of the season and an indication that the Bristol Bisons have come a long way since they were relaunched in December 2009. Well done to all the guys for their effort and putting such a tremendous performance on display.

The tour captain received the trophy at the social event that  took place at the  New Town Bar later that evening. All in all, this was an excellent weekend on and off the pitch. Well done to the Thebans for hosting such an impressive event. It was also great to spend some time with the gay rugby fraternity- catch up with friends and make some new ones too!

We already look forward to the next Rugby Clinic when we will be keen to defend our title.