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Greetings fellow Springers and welcome to this week’s match report.

Mighty Springs V Ponsonby Blue, Sat 13 July 2013. Cox's Bay.

It’s a funny thing, pressure. For some it can stifle, diminish or even paralyze. For others it focuses, liberates and allows greatness to be achieved. As someone quite clever once said: No Pressure. No Diamonds.

It was with this thought in mind that the lads gathered at Cox’s Bay on Saturday for an assignment as challenging as a Mensa entry test and as tough as a root canal operation without an anesthetic – the long-awaited clash against Ponsonby Blue - a team that had only lost once and was sitting proudly at the head of the table.

Added to that we were shorn of a couple of our warriors: the very much in-form Patrick and one of our great clubmen, Sammy - more on him a little later.

After last week’s awesome game the key words stressed at practice were; Rips, Rips and more Rips.
To achieve this the boys would need to be Focused, Focused and Focused.
Thankfully it was too cold to practice for too long because it became quite hard saying everything three times.

And so as Saturday finally arrived, a glorious day greeted the gathering and expectant crowd as Tony, resplendent in his well-polished boots, whistled to get the game going.
Disaster!
From the kick off the opposition immediately went wide and seconds later the Mighty Springs found themselves down a try.

Did they panic? Did they stress? Did they throw in the towel?

Did they heck.

Other teams would have collapsed more dramatically than a dodgy finance company and lost their way faster than a tourist in Venice.

Not so the Mighty Springs.

Showing more guts than a Sumo tournament in Tokyo, and more grit than the sandpaper section at Mitre 10 Mega, the boys put their heads down and went to work against a very, very good team.

Some twenty minutes later as they were catching their breath at halftime, it was patently obvious that it wasn’t just the oranges our boys were eating up, but the pressure as well.
We may have been only up by two but spirits were high and most importantly we were showing no signs of fatigue - which augured well for the second half.

Just as well as there was to be no let up.
No quarter was given; none was taken, but slowly and surely the Mighty Springs inched ahead.
Massive defence by Te Rangiura, Freddy, David and Jack, fine all-round games by Max and Kahu and sensational tries by Joachim and Ali meant that, like Gonzo from the Muppets, our noses were always in front.

And at the final whistle the Mighty Springs were deserved winners, 9-6.

But even more encouraging than these undoubtedly terrific individual performances was the way the boys handled the pressure of playing a team above them on the ladder. Passes went to pukus, there were often two players ripping an opposition player at the same time and throughout the entire match the boys stuck together like ToffeePops left out in the sun.

However there are three players that deserve special mention.

Man of Steel today was Bailey. And a more appropriate title could not be given.
Not once, not twice but five times Bailey pounced on loose ball, going to ground faster than a Latin American soccer player. As fearless as Evil Knievel and as ruthless as a Medieval executioner this was a brilliant, sustained effort from Bailey.

Player of the day today went to Tai. And in a team of heroes no one worked harder than Tai.
Unafraid to do the hard yards up the middle, swing back on defence or close up gaps on the reforms, Tai was like X Factor judge Stan Walker and rust in a 1970’s Italian car – absolutely everywhere. Great job Tai.

But the player who deserves our last mention today is our mate Sammy who is dealing with a different sort of pressure.
Sammy, all our thoughts are with you and your family as you make a full and speedy recovery.
We miss you and your fantastic skills and attitude and can’t wait to have you back in the famous black and blue jersey so you can dish out some black and blue of your own at our next game.

And from what we know about you Sammy and in the form the Mighty Springs are in, that moment can’t come soon enough.

Onwards Mighty Springs.