If you’d been watching the cup final in the clubhouse last week, you were probably a little disappointed with the result from Japan. But after, whilst you were enjoying ‘just one more’ consolation drink, talking nonsense and annoying the chairman by mentioning bar prices you may have overlooked the fact that Old Cryptians have missed two consecutive Saturdays of rugby.

This is all put right tomorrow with the return of league action and the visit of St Brendan’s RFC from Bristol. But whilst we may not have played recently, it has on the plus side given some players the opportunity to recover from injury and attend to other activities such as visiting Disneyland, moving to a new house and proposing marriage!

The team we welcome this week are a bit of an unknown but were promoted from Gloucester 2 South this season and have made a solid start to life in Gloucester 1. Five wins from six and sitting 3rd in the table they’ve had some impressive wins against the likes of Dursley and Gordon League, but oddly, suffered a huge defeat away to Colstonians two weeks ago. But clearly an organised team who will present problems.

The enforced lay off hasn’t meant a rest for the players as the coaches have continued with rigorous training plans and introduced new and innovative sessions. It’s also given them a good problem in terms of numbers with over 60 players available for selection this week as we see three teams at home.

The 1st team squad picked is the same selection as the cancelled Fairford game last week except that Brind and Stroud are unavailable and Pollock and Worrall come in.

The seconds and thirds are also in action at home and the full selections can be seen on the crypts site and all support will be appreciated.

Written by Kevin Norwood