The journey down was inconspicuous enough save for a number of culinary discussions. “Two double cheeseburgers for me” was the first food reference of the day. As the Service bus approached McDonald's in Sprucefield, star number 10 Stevie “The Power” Powell put his order in to those already assembled in the sister branch of our sponsor, McDonald's Dundonald. Having loaded the cheeseburger shaped out half with additional sustenance, the bus headed of through the County Down countryside with Curious George (Brown) Sampson aiming to expand his foodie knowledge. On the way he learnt that not only did Pork Pies contain pork, Cheesecake was also guilty of having cheese in it and carrots are indeed a key component of Carrot Cake.

One nutrition tradition that wasn't repeated this year was the annual leek and potato soup warm-up, with Service instead opting to get to the ground and do their own physical exertion style warm up. Upon arrival however, the travelling band were met with a rather sumptuous christmas card view of a rugby pitch covered in a blanket of glistening snow. The Virginia Officials had at 10.00am viewed the pitch, noticed the covering and decided that the following 4 hours of 0oC would be sufficient to melt the snow.

Undeterred by the referee's rather indifferent “Let me know if you don't want to play” the game went ahead nonetheless, with the lines of the pitch marked out by footprints, including one rather striking anatomical marking, which I assume was to encourage fertility in the surrounding agricultural land.

As anyone who has played at Virginia will testify, it is a very difficult place to score tries and Civil Service surprised even themselves by an early score against the team that had so soundly thrashed them at the start of the season. In only the second minute, burly Number 8 Yussef made one of his trademark breaks, reminiscent of Billy Vunipola against Munster on the same day. After finally being felled, the ball was presented well and despatched to Stevie Powell. Some good dummy runs from those inside opened up the defence for him to break over the gainline before passing to the fleeter of foot Chris Burns. Chris headed towards the tryline and whilst three Virginia defencemen valiantly tried to bring him down, he was able to offload the ball back inside for fellow centre Dan Cartland to stroll over for the try. Having spent part of the journey down eulogising over his successful kick statistics, regular place kicker Peter Hoskins will have been disappointed by his failure to convert.

Fortunately, a few minutes later, after further Service pressure, Hoskins had a chance to bring his statistics to 50% for the match, and redeem himself he did. There followed a period of sustained Virginia, with them trying to assert pressure through their strong running back row, but the Service loose forwards Yussef Hassay, Johnny “JC MkII” Crabbe and Matthew “Robbo” Robinson halting them on the gainline at every opportunity.

With the wintery conditions, there were always going to be a number of scrums. The front row of Trevor McDowell, Johnny “JC MkI – the original” Cartwright, and new Father Brendan Smyth (that doesn't sound right!), along with the engine room of Mick Murray and Geoff Agnew controlled the scrums which meant that the Virgina players were starved of possession. This led to frustration in the Virgins' ranks as just before the half-hour mark, their openside flanker dump tackled scrum half Steven Lawton, earning himself a wee rest in the sin-bin. Service knew that this was the time to strike. The senior professionals in the team spent some time constructively discussing the pro's and con's of how to use the numerical advantage in the scrum. At the next Virginia scrum, the men in green used their additional man to push back the Virginia scrum, with the ball popping up and returning open side Robbo pounced on the ball and touched down for a try. This time there was no mistake from Hoskins with the conversion.

The two sides exchanged one penalty apiece in the remaining minutes of the half.

Half time: Virginia 3 – 18 Civil Service

With their numbers back to full strength in the second half, Virginia continued to try to breakdown the Service defence with their hard running flankers and centres. Again, the Service defence was up to it repelling each attack, knowing that the next score would be vital in the final outcome of the game. On the 49th minute, Virginia gave away another penalty, and Hoskins struck it right through the middle of the posts, stretching Service's lead to an unassailable 18 points.

Despite this, Virginia continued to pressurise the Service line and finally got some reward for their efforts with two tries in the space of ten minutes following some sustained forward pressure. In previous matches, two opposition tries in rapid succession would have been a death knell for the Stormont men. Fortunately, today they were made of sterner stuff.

After getting the ball back into the Virginia 22, the home team had been awarded a scrum. Again with the pressure of the dominant Service pack, the ball went scrappily to their fly half, allowing Steven Lawton the time to close him down and charge down his kick. As Steven hunted down the ball in the dead ball area, he was cruelly hauled back by the opposition scrum half, resulting in the referee awarding a penalty try, converted by Hoskins.

With only five minutes to go, the match was one, Hoskins added a further layer of veneer with one last penalty and Virginia also secured a consolation try at the end, but it was a well deserved two points for Civil Service.

Final Score:
Virginia 20-31 Civil Service

There was a minor kerfuffle in the Service ranks afterwards, when George Brown realised that he had lost his iphone. After 45 minutes of desperate searching and numerous accusations against anyone within a 5 mile radius, I am pleased to report that it was located in the Valuables Bag........Yes, the Valuable Bag.

Following the match, coach Roy Lawton also broke with tradition by entering the Virginia clubhouse for the first time in living memory and greatly enjoyed the chicken curry. George was also interested to hear the the Chicken Curry not only contained Curry, it also contained Chicken.

The journey home was brightened by the vocal talents of those on their first bus trip. After being told that he couldn't sing the entire Erasure back catalogue, Johnny Crabbe went for a rather quiet and demure version of Mumford & Sons, “Little Lion Man”. Conor Caulfield gave a husky and soulful rendition of Ed Sheeran's “Thinking Out Loud”, which stirred Arthur in a way that he hasn't felt for some time. Stevie Lawton finished off the formalities with “I love Rock & Roll”. Not a bad choice we thought, until he dispensed with the original Joan Jett & the Blckhearts rendition and specifically asked for the Britney Spears version – Roy, have a word!

The bus trip continued with the Numbers game, where George and Conor did their best to ensure that everyone else remained sober – lucky neither of them work for a bank!

All in all, a great day. Great performance on the pitch and good craic on the way home.

IGTBS