A beautiful day for rugby

We left home long before the afternoon rugby matches as we had been invited to a 1st team pre-match lunch at one parent's house, who kindly served us delicious celeriac soup, sausages and rolls. We stand together on the touch line every Saturday but don't get to know each other so it was good to meet socially and chat. We always have to split our time watching one half of Adam's match (he plays in the 3rd team) and then the other half watching Luke's 1st team match. Today Luke's team annihilated the opposition, and when there were 10 minutes still to play and the score was 42-3 with many injuries in the opposition team, Luke's coach decided to stop the game to avoid further injuries. Adam's 3rd team were playing their 2nd team and sadly lost 17-10.

It was lovely watching in the beautiful late autumn sunlight, and I loved the soft light in this scene with the autumn trees. Luke plays centre, so he is standing to the left of the scrum waiting for the play to move out of the scrum. Playing as centre is a difficult position to get decent photos of him, because as a back he is either waiting for the ball to come out of the scrum or right in the thick of it and I can't see him to get a clear shot. They only have two matches left this season, and sadly that will be the end of 11 years of school boy rugby! Luke is terribly sad that these days are coming to an end and we as parents have loved watching and hardly ever miss a match, and will also miss watching his games. He may play at university one day but that will be different, more serious and more risky I think.