Page 88 of One Last Try

“Well, there we go, Cents exclusive,” the interviewer says. “Sounds like a fabulous day out. Keep your eyes posted on the Cents’ website for those details if you’re looking to nab yourself tickets.”

Then the screen cuts to an ad from our sponsors, and the guys are all round me—arms over my shoulders, around my waist, against my stomach. It went as well as expected. Exactly as I knew it would.

Five minutes later, when we run out onto the pitch for the start of the second half, the crowd is wild. There are no boos—either they’ve forgotten to, or are too stunned. Like always, I look for Owen in the stands. He waves, and points to a sign Lando’s holding up.

He’s obviously snatched someone’s handmadeGO CENTSboard, flipped it over, and in massive black lettering he’s written:

WE

SOLD

OUT!!!

Holy shit!

I’m laughing. “We’ve already sold out of tickets,” I tell Dan as Bristol run on and we line up. I have to smother my dopey as fuck grin with my palm.

“Already? Fuck.” He watches me for a couple of seconds that stretch into an eternity. “You love him.”

I don’t know if it’s a question.

I answer anyway. “Yes.”

“Mate,” is all he says in reply. His face is impassive.

We do as Owen predicted, pulling ahead early by scoring two tries—me at forty-six minutes and Eggo at fifty—but it’s not long before Bristol even it out. Almost. They miss their corner conversion and are only a couple of points behind. We spend the rest of the second half scrambling for a bigger advantage. It gets a little messy and desperate and there are so many subs and stoppages.

I’ve got one eye on the clock. Ten minutes left of the game.

It’s hot. The sun bakes the exposed skin on my face, arms, and legs, and periodically stabs me in the eyes. I have crusted blood on my eyebrow—my own. Someone else’s on my forearm. Other guys’ sweat in my mouth, at the back of my throat, singeing the hairs in my nostrils. There’s mud in places only rugby can put mud.

We’re dancing dangerously near to Bristol’s try line, edging closer and closer with each ruck and maul. The ball is on the ground more often than it’s in arms. We need to hold them back a little longer. I risk a glance at the clock. Four minutes left.

A Bristol prop breaks free, passes the ball back, passes it again to one of their flankers. The flanker drops his shoulder and smashes through the centre, but he’s met with my fifteen stone of pure adrenaline. Then Pi’s, then Dan’s, and then the Bristol boys throw their weight into it and walk it step by agonising step closer still.

Two minutes left and there’s still only two points in it.

They only need one try.

And they’re so fucking close.

One of my guys—quick check tells me it’s Harry—slams into the maul and the flanker is on the ground, and now were in a ruck. But not for long. The ball is knocked out by a clumsy Bristol foot and I pounce on it, dropping then booting it into the middle of the pitch.

It soars up and up and into the sun in a perfect arch.

Bristol’s fullback, Jude Weston or whatever the fuck his name is, is the first to reach it.

One minute on the clock.

Weston runs. Dodges Ollie. Somehow dodges Dan.

The crowd swells with excitement and anxiety. They scream and stomp, drums get smashed, horns blasted tunelessly. It’s skull-crushingly loud.

Thirty seconds.

He’s too far away; he’ll never make it. There’ll be extra time, but he’ll still never make it.

I don’t let myself relax. I make my move, tearing up the pitch in my desperation to reach him.

---