After a month of kick-starter events, the Isle of Man rugby season gets underway this weekend with two new-look competitions, writes Dave Christian.
The Manx Trophy and the Manx Bowl take centre stage on Saturday, both with new-look line-ups.
Both competitions will be on a simple round robin league basis with a first past the post winner.
Douglas South and Douglas North are new sounding but, in reality, are simply mixed versions of Douglas’ First XV and Douglas Celts. Such is the gap in playing standards between the First XV and everyone else that entering a Douglas first team would be pretty pointless.
The club has instead ’shuffled their pack’ and split their players between North and South depending on where they went to school. I’m not certain, however, that it will make much difference to their first opponents, the old enemy Vagabonds is the first of Douglas South’s fixtures.
The two clubs have been knocking lumps out of each other for 50 years and will have another bash at 3pm on Saturday. Vagas struggled against Douglas Celts last season in the Manx Cup and whether they can do better this time around will much depend on how pre-season training has gone.
Vagabonds made up the main bulk of the East’s players in the regional set-up which didn’t go well for them so you’d expect they may struggle here.
On the undercard at Port-e-Chee is also the visit of Guernsey’s St Jacques Vikings. Douglas North will play them at 1pm ahead of the old firm clash at 3pm.
In the other Trophy game, Ramsey travel to the Field of Dreams to face PDMS Southern Nomads. Ramsey’s inaugural visit to Ballakilley didn’t work out and young Nomad Jacob Halstein bagged the winner in the closing stages back in January.
The northerners have lost a couple to university but are largely unchanged. Nomads’ Django Kinley has been outstanding in the regional rugby and if he’s carried any form from that, Ramsey could be in trouble.
Vagabonds Ladies join Manx Bowl
With Vagabonds Ladies isolated from league rugby, the Manx executive committee has brought them into the domestic competitions and they’ve joined the Manx Bowl.
Contact matches between men and women are not permitted by the national governing body, but the executive has agreed some non-contact variations of normal playing rules and, with the exception of these, the women compete as equals.
Their first match was actually on Tuesday night when they lost out 74-56 to Vagabonds Hornets in a high-scoring affair, which was played early to avoid clashing with a booking at Ballafletcher this weekend.
At Mooragh Park, Ramsey B under new skipper Neil Hulme take on Western Vikings. The northerners won their last Mooragh Park encounter back in February, but Vikings have benefitted from the regional friendlies with several of their players running out for the all-conquering West side. They may be a different prospect this time round.
Finally, there’s a southern derby at Poulsom Park where Castletown host Emerging Nomads. These two had some close encounters last season and there should be more of the same in this format.
Results
Manx Bowl
Tuesday, September 29:
Vagabonds Hornets 74-56 Vagabonds Ladies
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Fixtures
Saturday, October 3:
Manx Trophy
Douglas South v Vagabonds
@ Port-e-Chee ko 3pm
PDMS Southern Nomads v Ramsey
@ Ballakilley ko 2.15pm
Manx Bowl
Ramsey B v Western Vikings
@ Mooragh Park ko 2.15pm
Castletown v Emerging Nomads
@ Poulsom Park ko 2.15pm
Friendly
Douglas North v St Jacques Vikings
@ Port-e-Chee ko 1pm
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