Page 59 - Light Dragoons 2023 CREST

The rugby season was a slow starter for the Light Dragoons. With no real game time due to the congested Regimental FOE up to summer leave, the only egg chasing that was conducted was by the master chef and his team with a bit of touch and pass on the back sports pitches run by SSgt Basalala.
But with summer leave out the way and most of the rugby players putting down their cricket bats it was now time to play a real sport, but with the rugby league sea- son over it was to be rugby union. Under the watchful eye of WO2 Greenwood and a lot of chasing of prospective players, train- ing began. With many of the old and bold coming out the woodwork and showing the young ones how it’s done, a good base and standard of ball handling and tackling was produced.
The Light Dragoons were then entered into the Inter-Unit Championships with our first match being against 5 RHA on the 2nd of November at Marne Barracks. With the enemy confirmed, it was time to prepare with more rucking and tack- ling practice. With this came a lot of big chat from the recently returning Capt Montgomery-Stuart. This was soon put to bed by the Training Warrant Officer WO2 Price showing him what “being folded like a deck chair” really means. With all the extra training getting conducted the team were very often seen walking through camp covered head to toe with mud, lack- ing any dirt on a shirt was the nominated number 10 Maj Freeman, often turning up to training when the team was packing up.
The first game of the competition finally upon us the team made its way over to Marne Barracks to confront the mighty gunners, who came across over-confident and Fijian heavy. However, once the game kicked off this meant little and The Light Dragoons demonstrated why they had been working so hard by dominating the tackles and rucks.
Big games were put in by newcomers Tpr Ling and Taylor, with this being their first ever rugby match (Tpr Ling demonstrated why his nickname is “Dolph” by breaking
anyone who ran at him). Also lacing his boots up was Cpl Holmes who after insist- ing that he had retired couldn’t help him- self and persistently took players heads off, showing why he’s an inter-services rugby league player, whilst also bagging a couple of tries.
With a hard-fought game under their belts and a 22-19 win over the gunners the LDs look forward to further games and coming first in the inter-unit championship in the New Year.
The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
Rugby
57