Weekly news

So here we are. Grand Final Week 2014. Colleagues have once again outperformed every club with 4 sides making the Grand Final. It isn’t easy to reach the grand final and it is even harder to win it. It was stated two weeks ago, and it is something that should be reiterated, particularly in light of our performance on GF day 2013, that nobody except the players in the team remembers who came second. Second is the most painful position to come because you never get to play that game again. You never know when your next Grand Final will be or if you will even get another crack. Enjoy the week because the build up to the game and mental preparation is a great part of being in a Grand Final.

A quick recap on the weekends games, where Suthos and Judd rounded out 4  Blue Giants teams in the big show, downing Drummoyne 14-3 and Mosman 20-3 respectively. Suthos crossed the stripe twice via intercept tries and while some might read that as lucky, it was the sustained and brutal defence that brought about loose passes and opened the door for some very speedy backs to take their chances. Juddies were simply too strong for Mosman, playing a very well structured and disciplined game to shut Mosman out at every chance. Well done boys and now for the Big One.

Go the Giants.

Burke Cup: WCRUFC vs St Pats. TG Milner #1 – 1:20 pm

It’s a rematch of the Major Semi here, where Colleagues put together a driving line-out clinic on a mudbath at David Phillips. 14-3 was the final scoreline in a fair reflection of the domination shown by colleagues on the wettest track since Ladies Day. Throughout the year, colleagues had not managed to knock off Pats but a 1 point loss in Round 1 and 9 points (two intercepts) in round 2 will not have the Burkies boys concerned. Captained by hooker Jono Willis, who leads an incredible hard, fast and agile forward pack, Burkies are looking to avenge the 2012 GF defeat at the hands of Pats, not to mention the loss against Balmain last year, the boys will not be short of motivation and this will be a fantastic game to watch. Potentially a couple of Blue Giant heroes are in their final game for the club here in Gussy Graham and Cam Ireland (although we’ve heard that before) so lets send these legends off as they deserve.

Whiddon Cup (aka Horace): WCRUFC vs Balmain. TG Milner Field #1 – 10:15am

Whiddos take on Balmain who upset St Pats in the final last week. The last time the Whiddos took on Balmain, it was a tight affair but a comfortable 3 tries to 1 victory was had by the boys in blue. Being Balmain’s only side in action on GF day, they will have plenty of depth and fresh reserves so this will be a tough battle. Colleagues forwards were outstanding in the Major Semi and will be looking to perform at least to that level again, if not better. Led by Tim Mundy, who steps in for the injured Chris Meharg, the boys will be looking to get Horace back to his spiritual home at BGS, where he has lived for 7 of the last 10 years, but has not been back since the famous 2011 victory. It’s time.

Judd Cup: WCRUFC vs St Pats. TG Milner Field #1 – 9:00am

Laurie and Monty’s affectionately known ‘Dome’ has swept all before them this year, remaining undefeated through the minor premiership rounds but were met by a desperate Pats side in the Major Semi, where some dubious refereeing left them 1 man down for 80% of the game and 2 down for 40% of the game. Rumour has it that ref is the father of a poor young bloke that copped a compound fracture at the hands of our Judd boys on Ladies Day… Skipper and 5-8th SP McGoldrick has had an outstanding season, making more linebreaks than a northern territory highway and with the Jones/Toohey centre pairing outside him, making less tackles in a season than Matt Aubery. This game will be one to watch for sure if you can get there early enough, these two teams are the standouts in the competition and running rugby is sure to be on show. It will also be an opportunity to see the Kentwell standard players successfully hoarded away all year by the cunning coaches.

Sutherland Cup: WCRUFC vs Old Iggies. TG Milner Field #2 – 11:30am

The Suthos/ Halligan combined squad has already tasted premiership glory this year, taking out the Halligan Cup but this one will mean a lot more to the boys given the nature of the competition. Old Iggies are just that, old, but they know how to play to their strengths so the colleagues boys will have their work cut out for them. Having said that, 5/8th and captain Jon Dart is a quality player and will lead the boys around the park and coupled with a few mongrel forwards in Chook, Rushy, Bowman, Kiwi and Sam Orders will be sure to set a nice platform so that Benny ‘the bulldozer’ Waters can plough through some solid metres up the middle. We also saw a couple of incredibly fast outside backs on show last week against Drummoyne and the prospect of seeing these boys unleash on TG Millner #2 is a mouth-watering one.

A phenomenal day of rugby is in store for colleagues supporters and with three buses heading out there, departing easts car park at 6:30am, 8:00am and 10:00am, be sure as to not miss a minute of it.

If you somehow miss it, don’t fear, all Blue Giants will be celebrating on Saturday Night at our trusty sponsor pub the Woollahra Hotel. The Blue Giants Room out the back is booked out for colleagues and their fans so get around them.

Presentation Day is locked in for Saturday the 27th of September at the Woollahra Hotel, kicking off at 1pm. Further details will follow but please put the date in your diary in red pen and hold off on that weekend away with the Mrs until the following weekend (which is a long weekend anyway so that should help your argument). As a Blue Giant, it is your responsibility to join in and celebrate (hopefully) 5 premierships, the Bingham Cup as well as the best of each team and the club in general.

No Grand Final is complete without a silly Sunday so don’t miss out. This Sunday from 12 midday, all players are required at Blue Giant’s Stadium for a BBQ, a couple of quiet beverages and perhaps some light entertainment to celebrate the season, which has been a moderate success thus far but the real success will be determined on Saturday.

This years theme is strictly FRAT PARTY so get your American Jock on and dont forget, it’s No Undy Sundy.

It is a great milestone and a sign of a true Blue Giant to chalk up 100 games for this great club. If you are one that has reached that mark (or 200 games) this season, please send through your application to be recognised on the club’s honour roll as a 100-cap player. Applications to king.henry86@gmail.com or richard.mcgrath@hr-ss.com.au by COB on the 19th of September.

Blue Giants,

The final regular season round is finally upon us and we will head out to Drummoyne oval to take on the Dirty Reds for the second time in a fortnight. Once again, this will be a great test right across the grades and certainly a game that no side can afford to drop as we look to the semi-finals next week. Get down early and support the suthos as they vie to wrap up the minor premiership; Judd have already secured theirs and it would be great to see Whiddos complete the hat-trick. Burkies will be looking to emanate the all blacks return clash after a 12-all draw last time around. Kentwell have the slimmest of hopes of making the finals and that rests upon a win tomorrow (and some other favourable results) so get behind the top grade tomorrow, there are no internationals so no need to get away early. The support is greatly appreciated and will no doubt be repaid in kind throughout the finals series.

Game times as follows:

Kentwell:       3:15pm
Burke:           2:00pm
Barbour:        12:45pm
Whiddon:       11:40am
Judd:             10:45am
Sutherland:    9:45am

Note: All games are on regardless of weather and all games will be held on the back oval – Taplin Park.

After the games at Drummoyne, we will be holding our ‘End of regular season’ party at the Woollahra Hotel. Always a great party, so look forward to seeing everyone there celebrating a Blue Rinse and all the challenges we have come through this year as well as bonding as a club for the HUGE finals series we have ahead.

The Bingham Cup is finally upon us and this festival of Rugby has kicked off today at Blue Giant Stadium and will be held over the next three days, with the final on Woollahra #1 on Sunday Afternoon. Good luck to the Convicts, lets wrap up some more silverware for the year.

Further details about all things Bingham Cup at the following link: //binghamcup.com/

One of the lessons learned from the ball last weekend was that while it doesn’t matter how many times you tell blokes, they will forget that these events are on. As such, please save the date NOW for Sunday the 21st of September 2014. The end of season BBQ as it were is one event that you definitely do not want to miss. Further details to follow.

After a solid performance across the grades at McKay oval last weekend, we also performed admirably at the Woollahra Hotel watching the Wallabies come agonisingly close in a kiss-your-sister Bledisloe 1. This weekend, we turn our focus to the mosman whales. After a wet and windy week, with a disrupted training schedule and a logistical hurricane, we have yet another new ground and some adjusted playing times for tomorrow. Please read below carefully:

Games are moved to Christison Park, Vaucluse as follows:

Field #1:
Kentwell     3:15pm
Burke         2:00pm

Field #2:

Whiddon      3:15pm
Barbour        2:00pm

Judd and Sutherland: POSTPONED

Mosman will fancy themselves as always so let’s head out there with a win at all costs mentality and dominate every area of the game to give yourself the best chance to win as well as putting your team in a great position ready for the finals onslaught that is a mere 2 weeks away. Judd have the minor premiership secured, congratulations lads; Burke, Whiddon and Sutherland have wrapped up major semi-final spots and colties are guaranteed finalists as well, leaving Kentwell to round out the entire club into semis tomorrow. It’s a simple equation: Win and we’re in, lose and we’re out. Given the stakes, it would be great to see as many of the lower grades stick around and cheer the boys home and show our strength as a club.

Massive congratulations to the Halligan boys who have secured the clubs first silverware of the year. Halligans have been unstoppable as they have travelled to all corners of Sydney and taken down all comers to finish on top of no less than 19 other contenders in the Halligan competition. Great work lads and a special mention to the tireless coaching staff Benny Abrahams and JP Chaina who have made many hundreds of phone calls and sent thousands of emails trying to get these boys a game.

Let’s hope to see the trophy/vessel at the Ball later tomorrow night!

For those attending the Ball on Saturday night, you should be very excited, we have a great night planned. This is colleagues night of nights and this year there is a bit of a twist with the masquerade theme thrown in at the bargain price of $100. Pre drinks are at Ravesis, just around the corner to watch Bledisloe II. The Bledisloe is also on at the Bucket List so if you’re looking to get the absolute maximum out of the bar tab, watch the game at the Bucket list or head across from Ravesis at half time.

If anyone has not got a ticket yet but would like one, just so happens that a few spare tickets are floating about. Please see Cam Ireland or Henry King tomorrow if you wish to be involved – you won’t regret it.

Details:
Date:             TOMORROW NIGHT, 7:00pm
Cost:              $100 per ticket (Dinner and drinks all included – this is an absolute steal)
Theme:           Black tie masquerade
Venue:           The Bucket List, Bondi
Pre drinks:     Wallabies vs All Blacks in Auckland 5:30pm – venue Ravesis, Bondi Beach

Payment details:
Woollahra Colleagues RUFC
BSB: 032004
ACCT. No: 990001
Reference: **NAME** Ball

Kelly Ireland has recently been made redundant from a global commercial property management company, and is looking for work. You will probably have seen Kelly at a few games over the last couple of years, and down at the Woollahra. Kelly is English, has lived in Australia for the last 3 years after serving in the British Army, and is not interested in returning to the UK, who can blame her!

Kelly’s sector experience includes; Commercial Property Management, ICT Incident Management, Defence and Finance. Her core skills are Project Management, Logistics Management, Operational Risk and Compliance, and Facilities Management. During Kelly’s most recent employment in Commercial Property she was responsible for the Operations Management of a portfolio of properties across Australia, and the Tenants/ Contractors for a 30 floor A Grade Building in Sydneys CBD.

If you have any employment leads for Kelly please contact her at Kelly.anne.ireland@gmail.com or call her on 0477043856

The Gay Rugby World Cup is just one week away. Should be a great weekend down at Blue Giant Stadium and we can confirm that there is now grass on the ovals!

Further details about all things Bingham Cup at the following link: //binghamcup.com/

Blue Giants,

There has been a little bit of confusion this week in regards to training. This week, we are training as per normal at Woollahra ovals #2 and #3 Tuesday at 6:30pm and Thursday at 6:30pm.

Starting next week, we will be training at Trumper Oval, Glenmore Road, Paddington on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:30pm. There will be a reminder next week but make sure you keep Monday and Wednesday free for the next few weeks. Finals are only a few weeks away so we really need to be working hard over the next few weeks to make sure we hit peak fitness at the start of finals.

Another hugely successful Ladies Day and first of all, thank you to all colleagues that helped out through the day. There were far too many to count but it was greatly appreciated and puts us in a great position for future Ladies Days. If you get the opportunity in the coming weeks, it would also be worthwhile passing on your thanks to Goochy, who did a huge amount of work putting the day together and it certainly could not have happened without him.

On the field, we knew we were in for some tough matches and it was an opportunity to see where we were at relative to the Club Championship leaders. Sutherland, Judd and Barbour were extremely impressive in dominating their opposition and a special mention should go to Halligan, most of whom backed up from Sutherland and knocked off Petersham 5th Grade.

Whiddon also played a great match, overcoming no coaches (although they might all find themselves dropped this week since Laurie was the stand-in coach), a 2 hour warm up due to injury, and a field change to take down Pats in relatively convincing fashion and close the gap at the top of the table with a game in hand.

For Burkies, it was a reminder that you need to take your opportunities in the tight games but the boys would be confident of being able to reverse the result in the finals and for Kentwell, it was certainly a game of two halves where after leading at half time, we let the opportunity slip by not aiming up in defence and not treasuring our possession.

Overall, it was a good day for the Blue Giants and the challenge is to continue to improve in the next few weeks because the games are only going to get tougher. That starts by getting down to Tuesday training this week to put yourself in the best possible position as players begin to return from injury and vacation.

Special thanks to our great sponsors for their generous donations.

The Woollahra Hotel – Bulmers Cider

Jan Logan – $500 Gift voucher

Nude by Nature Skincare products – $500 Skin care package

Argyle meats – Meat tray and year round BBQ meat supply

The Gift Collective – Champagne sponsor and Louis Voutton Handbag

The Bucket List – 2 x $100 gift vouchers

Endeavour Beer – Delicious kegs of Pale Ale enjoyed out of red Frat cups. Outstanding

Car next door – 2 x $100 gift vouchers

Will Davies (a sometimes Juddies & sometimes Burkies player) started the peer-to-peer car sharing platform Car Next Door about 2 years ago and they now have shit loads of cars all over the eastern suburbs. – see where: //www.carnextdoor.com.au/find-a-car/.    He wanted to give all Colleagues a free day’s car rental on the house. To get the free day, just quote COLLEAGUES14 when you join up.  This will give you $35 off your first trip, which for most trips is the full cost.  (Cars start from $5/hour or $25/day, plus 33c a kilometre which covers fuel).

Also keen to speak to people who have a car they don’t use much and want to earn $2-6k per year from it.

To find out more or to join, check out www.carnextdoor.com.au.

Some great photos taken on Saturday available for purchase from the following website:

//www.geosnapshot.com/albums/browse?album_ids%5B%5D=741&album_ids%5B%5D=740&album_ids%5B%5D=739&album_ids%5B%5D=738#from_map

Saturdays in Winter don’t get much better than tomorrow. Ladies Day at Colleagues where we test ourselves against the top of the club championship in our last chance to have a crack at bringing back Bruce. After playing, you get to watch your mates play and win as well as fraternising with the fairer sex who have come down to enjoy all the good things about colleagues… The Magnificent Men and the bar. Finally, the Waratahs are hosting the crusaders at ANZ stadium and there is a free bus to take those who are attending the Game. For those who aren’t, the Woollahra Hotel is a great place to get into the Tah’s atmosphere and watch the boys bring home the bacon against the ‘saders.

A note on the games tomorrow, as mentioned above, this is our final chance to have a crack at the 2014 club championships. Not only that, as the Finals draw closer, the time has come to understand whether each side is the real deal this year. The test is huge tomorrow but no doubt the Giants will stand up and send a message to the competition that we are here for silverware in 2014. The toughest tests are the best so don’t take a backwards step… the beers taste so much sweeter after a victory.

Game times vs St Pats @ BGS as follows:

Woollahra #2

• Kentwell:                                                        3:15pm
• Burke:                                                            2:00pm
• Whiddon:                                                       1:00pm
• Judd:                                                             12:00pm
• Sutherland:                                                    11:00am

Woollahra #3:

• Barbour:                                                        1:00 pm
• Halligan vs Maccabi to wrap up the trophy:  12:00 midday

Good luck and don’t forget that chicks dig helpers so help out tomorrow wherever you can. Namely:

1. WIN – chicks dig winners and its the biggest game of the season so far for just about every grade
2. Pour Champagne – Chicks dig blokes that keep their drink topped up
3. Sell Raffle tickets – Chicks dig shiny new things so if she get’s lucky, guess who else does? The blue giant that sold her the ticket… be that guy

Massive day coming up Saturday and no doubt all those who have been away or unable to make the past few games will be coming back out of the woodwork for this one. As if you need to be reminded again but we can never have enough Ladies so get on the facebook page and invite all you know. It’s called doing your bit as a Blue Giant. It’s called helping your mates, call it what you want but without the Ladies, what is Ladies Day?

Here is what is on offer for the monster raffle we have organised this year. Its not one to miss out on and its a great selling point for any Ladies sitting on the fence:

• Jan Logan – $500 Gift voucher
• The Gift Collective – Champagne sponsor and mystery prize up to $750 in value (see below)
• Nude by nature skin care range $500 gift package
• 2 x $100 Bucket list voucher’s
• 2 x Jackie’s Sport’s massage vouchers
• Meat Tray by Argyle Prestige Meats $100 value

We sold out of our ‘thinking sweats’ last week but there are still a bunch of ‘Kentwell shirts’ available for your game day wardrobe. at $50 a piece, these are a steal. Get yourself one from Hitcho at the bar tomorrow.

Special thanks to our great sponsors for their generous donations.

The Woollahra Hotel – Bulmers Cider

Jan Logan – $500 Gift voucher

Nude by Nature Skincare products – $500 Skin care package

Argyle meats – Meat tray and year round BBQ meat supply

The Gift Collective – See below

The Bucket List – 2 x $100 gift vouchers

Endeavour Beer – Delicious kegs of Pale Ale enjoyed out of red Frat cups. Outstanding

Will Davies (a sometimes Juddies & sometimes Burkies player) started the peer-to-peer car sharing platform Car Next Door about 2 years ago and they now have shit loads of cars all over the eastern suburbs. – see where: //www.carnextdoor.com.au/find-a-car/.    He wanted to give all Colleagues a free day’s car rental on the house. To get the free day, just quote COLLEAGUES14 when you join up.  This will give you $35 off your first trip, which for most trips is the full cost.  (Cars start from $5/hour or $25/day, plus 33c a kilometre which covers fuel).

Also keen to speak to people who have a car they don’t use much and want to earn $2-6k per year from it.

To find out more or to join, check out www.carnextdoor.com.au.

Want to win a signature Monogram NEVERFULL MM LOUIS VUITTON HANDBAG for yourself or your better half?

1. “Like” The Gift Collective on facebook.com/TheGiftCollective
2. Tag a friend on The Gift Collective facebook page  who is engaged, and ask them to; “(Name) check out the #TheGiftCollective for your wedding”
3. You are now in the draw to win a Louis Vuitton and your friend will get $1000.00 credit if they use The Gift Collective

Entries open until the final whistle on game day!!

The Gift Collective