A fine summer’s day greeted the squad for warm-up and the prospects of another season lay ahead. Rumors abound of the quality of the opposition and the potential quality of the league.

Always an uncertain time and you do everything you can to prepare for it, we in the background are doing our best to make the place a place to be proud of and of course the new dressing rooms make this a very appealing place to visit.

The coaches have been working hard on trainings, on how we will play the game and how we think about the game. Plus of course the majority of the squad has been involved in some form of training since November both on the indoor and since we went back outdoors at the start of April.

The attitude in the camp is this league is a bad one for us the travelling the glaringly obvious fact that we are the odd ones out and the need for our club to be in a more balanced division. But as is well pointed out, the only way to achieve this is to win your games.

We all knew Malmö would have a decent team and they didn’t disappoint coming with a full team and decent bench and we appreciate their effort as we will well know it is no walk in. the park trip to make.

But if you aren’t motivated by the first game in glorious sun shine and a crowd shy of 100 supporters including many oldboys then I don’t know what would.

The game started and in fact continued much the same way for 80 minutes, a tough game with plenty of hits, plenty of mistakes and plenty of lack of focus. But in the early exchanges the fact Malmo had a few pre season games was showing as they were the team with most continuity, we were starting with a new front row with Björn in from the start and his first outing without his partner in crime Eamonn, but he would be ably supported by the experience of Andy brown at hooker and of course martin who made the journey from Örebro. But outside that the pack was made up of regular players. The backline saw a few changes with Roffe deputizing at 10 for Markus Nyrén who was missing due to certain indiscretions and Ragge starting in centre but the biggest surprise was lolla at 15. On that point lolla said to me at the start of the game he didn’t mind having to kick but getting under the ball worried him and for my mind he didn’t mishandle a single ball all day and was in good position all afternoon.

A scrappy first half saw no scores but it was still a decent spectacle and a little frustrating for Thierry and tobbe who were seeing the KRK lads failing to capitalize or giving away cheap balls. It had the makings of a kicking game (so praise to whomever on high that I was not in)

Second half got underway and we seemed to have found another gear and Maake and eric ceder were leading by example some sterling defensive work and coming with the relevant aggression needed to turn a tight game in your favour. But there was still no sign of anyone coming close to the whitewash. Björn took a knock and was replaced by Ben making his debut at prop and low and behold only minutes later Martin picked up a knock meaning our retiree Eamonn would be called to task earlier then planned (a bizarre luxury for any team to have 2 substitute props). The extra power told immediately and we turned over two scrums in a row but were still failing to make any real use of the gained ball. I felt we could have used or power in the pack a little more as just on observation it seemed like we had 40 kilos on their first 8.

We also started to lose our discipline and a dubious decision saw Sefton get 10 minutes cooling off time and maybe it can be said one or two of the Malmo lads who reacted with a few jabs to an innocuous challenge could easily have seen yellow, but who would want to be a ref you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

But we held out the attacks during this period and even managed to get some points on the board, a sublime kick from Roffe on the left side saw us go 3 points up. A few scrappy minutes went by and sefton returned to the game and again roffe stepped up with another fine 3 points from the penalty. A few moments later we turned over a ball and maake made a fine break with ceder and it looked for a second like we may get the elusive try, but it wasn’t to be, in fact it was Malmo after a hard push who crossed the line for 5 points but failed to convert keeping our noses in front by the finest of margins and with 7 minutes on the clock.

Roffe got a final opportunity to give us a cushion but was unlucky as is the case the ones that look easiest are always the hardest to get right.

We rode our luck a few times but were eventually punished with a penalty in a kickable position Malmo switched kickers to their centre who had been excellent in his position kicking all day so it looked ominous, but he hooked the kick and it sailed just past the post, we could breathe again but only for a few minutes or so with the seconds ticking away malmo were given another penalty and rightly so, again within kicking distance but thankfully another hooked shot sailed not very far past the post. Meaning by the tiniest of margins we claimed our first points of the season and are assured a very tough return fixture when we head south to Malmo.

Thanks to the great crowd that turned up and created a wonderful atmosphere, thanks also to gunbritt and Lena for keeping the café running smooth. Thanks to Malmo for a great game and a good bunch of lads. Most importantly thanks to the referee who handled himself excellently, was well turned out and on time and ensured a fair and well run game.

Good to see so many oldboys round the place yesterday and we hope to see much more of them.

It was a good win and it also showed this will be a tough division so we have a building block and we can only get better with game time.