The day started earlier than most, with the Christian Brothers Academy newly competing squad facing off intramurally at just half past nine, but for so many of us, it started days, weeks, months, years and decades ago. As has been the case for the past few years, Monmouth Day was going to house games for all of our sides, including the third iteration of the Mean Machine game, this time squaring up with Suffolk. Even though there match was played with ebbs and flows of pace, the MM was able to hold Suffolk off, even as they started pleading to borrow some of our own players. That’ll show them to ask for extra time.
The Renegades also stood strong against a travelling Doylestown side, defeating them handidly, and showing off a nice mix of both young and veteran players. It was mildly through this games first half, that we saw the sidelines starting to pile up, and the sun began to shine, and the wind began to die. It was there on those sidelines that I began to see the many face of Monmouth Rugby, five year old girls who met on these Thompson Park sidelines, a MM player walking off in his own camraderie of ‘scoring in five decades’, current players who joined at 35 and ones that joined at 15. They were all over, and they all had their stories to tell. There was plenty of rehashing, tales of glory moments on the fields and nipping around at all the friends they haven’t seen, haven’t met, or just needed someone to remind them of.
The senior side took on the travelling Montclair side, and though there was an early scare, Monmouth settled down and took them down with astute ferocity, welcoming in new player “Bobby Brady”. Before the second side fielded against Montclair, the Monmouth Old Boys took on a kinned side from Montclair, and though Montclair came out on top, to a man they all had their fun.
After the games, everyone made their way back to the clubhouse where they we welcomes to a Kenny Molina roasted pig, as well as music by the Jukebox Criminals and a Hall of fame ceremony that was well in the making. We’d like to thank everyone that came out and hope that it will not be the last time we see any of you. Nothing but great things have been said, and I think it is important that, not only did everyone enjoy themselves, we were able to be quielty reminded of how much each of us matters to each other.
Thanks to all, and congrats to the latest in the Hall of Fame class:
Jack Stankiewicz
RJ Bifani
Larry Fox
Terry Hand
Paule Barford
