Page 66 - The Cormorant Issue 14

The ACSC 14 Tough Guy Team – before the event!
the water that came up to their chests went well over my head, but I’m convinced my short stature had nothing to do with it!
It turned out to be a real test, a good day out, and a great way of getting to know a few muckers on the Course a lot better. There can’t be many better ways of bonding than spending time crawling on your hands and knees in the dark together – through pipes full of unavoidable hanging strips that deliver high voltage electric shocks!
The serious business of the day was raising money for Combat Stress. Readers won’t need to be reminded of how important this charity is, but they should be aware that Majors Chris Frazer and Kate Gibbs were instrumental in helping us complete the event and raise £2350 for this noble cause.
The Tough Guys are: Lt Cdr Al Wilson, Lt Cdr Mike Thompson, Lt Cdr Mark Scott, Wg Cdr Pete Daulby, Maj Jon Hamilton USMC, Lt Col Alistair Rogers and Lt Col Dom Biddick
Defence Academy Rugby Season 2010–11
By Lt Col AJ (Sandy) Fitzpatrick (Scots)
The Defence Academy Rugby 1st and 2nd XV have all enjoyed a good fun year. Fortunately, the season did not bring too many career threatening injuries, even for those more seasoned play- ers undergoing Staff College training. In terms of performance, I suppose the season could be summed up in one word – frus- trating!! The non-availability of players, the poor weather and the difficulty in achieving fixtures all had an impact on a good run. We certainly had the talent and when it was mustered the results were fantastic, but we started off slowly in the Army Cup and then ebbed and flowed thereafter.
The first game of the season was against 11 Sig Regt in the Army Cup. With the quality of the squad we massed, we expected a
The Director General of the Defence Academy pipes the team on to the pitch
win. The game plan was sound and we started well, but through- out the season we always seemed to have a mid-match slump. In this case, it was capitalised upon by the opposition and we lost our first game in the Cup and were consequently knocked out. All was not lost, we faired better in the Shield and achieved some great results, but with the poor weather we soon fell behind in our Shield fixtures. This forced us to travel to attend games, but our training course programme was unfortunately insufficiently flexible to allow us to meet all of these fixture commitments. Sadly and as a result, we had to forfeit our Shield game under pressure from the Army Rugby Union. This was frustrating as we believe that we would have easily won the games and could have gone on to win the competition.
With the competitive games behind us it was time to have fun on the park. There were a few matches to finish off the season. The ICSC 7A played Kansas City Rugby Club while on their US trip. It was a terrific game with some ‘champagne style’ rugby being displayed by the Defence Academy. Every member of the 25 man squad had some game-time and all greatly contributed to the result. The final score of Kansas 12 and Defence Academy 48 belies the competitive nature of the game. Kansas played with real spirit and determination, running and tackling hard for all 80 minutes of the game.
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