Hello one and all. Sorry there was nothing last week to feast your eyes upon, only there was probably enough “press” doing the rounds without me adding to it!

Obviously the news was dominated by the Vicarious Liability charge that was upheld against the club reference the incident that happened up at Halifax in October 2005. I do not wish to add to the controversy other than to say that I feel the ruling will have a massive effect in sport in general. I have no wish to enter into any discussion over the rights and wrongs of what happened that day and I am sure there have been and there will be incidents that are just as bad or worse that will happen in the future.

What we must do is ensure that our players understand their obligations under the contract of employment that they have and understand the liabilities that they could be under should they go outside of that. It really is a case of sitting down, going through the document and ensure that the club and the player are very clear on each others responsibilities.

Just read on Teletext that Newcastle mid fielder Joey Barton has pleaded guilty to assaulting a team mate whilst he was a Man City player. He made this plea on the eve of his hearing whilst serving a 6 month jail sentence for assaulting someone else a while back. Also in the news is Jimmy Cowan the All Black scrum half who, for the second time in a very short while, has been arrested by police for causing trouble. I wonder how their clubs/union will react to the incidents?

Pre season starts tomorrow night (Tuesday) and the session will be held at Redruth School. The turnout should be good if Sunday Touch is anything to do by.

Just as a reminder, our pre season games are against Cornish Pirates (at Camborne) on August 16th and Bath United (at Bath) on August 23rd. The Development team have a fixture against Brixham. at Redruth, on August 16th.

Tickets for the Pirates game, priced at

Mark Scrivener has signed for Redruth for the coming season.

Redruth Director of Rugby, David Penberthy, said he was delighted that Mark Scrivener was returning to the club for next season.

Penberthy went on to say ” This will be Mark’s third spell with the club following a loan period back in 2002/2003 where he played a lead role in our Cornwall Cup winning side. Following that, Mark joined the Cornish Pirates but returned for the promotion winning season in 2004/2005. Unfortunately Mark picked up a serious knee injury that kept him out of the side for about 6 months. He made a brave comeback in our first season in National 2 but left at the end of that season to join the Cornish All Blacks. He has figured regularly in the 1st team squad and played a number of games in their First Division campaign last season.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE

COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION

Following the original hearing and subsequent appeal this case went to the High Court in April. It took the judges some two and a half months to reach a decision and hand down the judgement, probably because the decision may well have huge implications for all semi-professional sports clubs.

In short Redruth RFC has been found vicariously liable for the actions of Richard Carroll at Halifax on 29th October 2005. This means that, in future, all clubs will have a legal responsibility if any of their employed players commits an act of foul play that results in injury.

Redruth RFC never has, nor will, condone foul play. Indeed the players

An audience with the Players proved very popular on Friday the 13th, no horror shows however just plenty of fun, catch ups, plans, oh and some drink and great food.

Our thanks to all who came, a great turn-out that went well past the witching hour. Well done to Denise and Kim on preparing a fantastic buffet, and to Chris Allen and Mark Bryant for the music and fun.

David Penberthy welcomed our guests, David Martin England RFU Rep on behalf of the Cornwall RFU and key on the rules and regulations panel. Also attending was Radio Cornwall’s very own Emma Vardy, host of the Saturday sports show, sports producer, and presenter of the Sunday afternoon “Cornwall Connected” programme.

David Penberthy briefly summarised last season, David Martin handed out the ties, blazers and trophies to all those players whose recognition was well-deserved, then out-going Captain Craig Bonds passed the baton to PJ Gidlow, and gave a memorable slide-show assisted speech, culminating in likening the First XV and some backroom boys to the cast of TV’s The Simpsons.

The Awards are as follows

Blackbrook Trophy for the Supporter of the Year

87 year old Raymond Dunstan (Geoff Sinclair 2007)

A.J. Paul & Co. Cup for the Clubperson of the Year

80 something year old Cynthia Prisk (Dave Thomas 2007)

A well desrved award for Cynthia who has supported the Club for many years, both home and away, still looks half her age, and gives so much of her time in arranging raffles, the Christmas Draw and the prizes, providing knitwear woven by her own fair hand – plus loads of vocal support from kick-off until final whistle.

Club Ties (50 Club Appearances): Mark Bright, Glenn Cooper, Grant Thirlby, Dan Job, Ashley Morcom, James Mann, Simon Peters, Alan Rule

Club Blazer Badges (75 Club Appearances):Luke Collins, PJ Gidlow, Tim McBride

Maroon Blazers (100 First Team Appearances)

Damien Cook

Darren Jacques

Lewis Vinnicombe

Paul Thirlby

Nathan Thomas Trophy for the Most Promising Player

Steve Kenward (Ryan Spargo 2007)

Mr & Mrs J.T. Penberthy Shield for the 2nd XV Player of the Year

Ben Fox (Jason Pengilly 2007)

Training Attendance Shield

Peter Joyce (Damien Cook 2007)

Fitness Shield

Craig Bonds & Mark Richards (Peter Joyce 2007)

Roy Jennings Cup for the Most Improved Player of the Season

Chris Fuca (Luke Collins 2007)

Supporters

The Presentation Evening went off very well on Friday and there was a good sized crowd there. The player’s were strongly represented, it was a bit of a shame that there were not more supporters there. However, all that were there had a great time and Chris Allen was to the fore in providing entertainment until the early hours!

Principal award winners are listed on the awards report.

The award that Neil Douch received was donated by the “Ladies” …. it is always given to Nigel and myself to award to a player who we think has been outstanding in their contributions to the club. Neil is a very worthy winner and has given year’s of dedication to the club. A while back he had offers to move to the Pirates and Plymouth Albion but remained loyal to the Reds. At 40+ he still featured regularly in the 1st XV squad last season and will no doubt be back this …. and what a great bloke!

I was also very pleased that Cynthia Prisk received the Club person of the Year. She has put many hours into fund raising on behalf of the club and thoroughly deserved her award.

So onto the internationals that took place on Saturday morning …. and a very promising start by England soon materialised into the expected!

I didn’t think all was too bad, there were good performances from Tom Rees, James Haskell and Topsy Ojo. The one real issue that has to be addressed before next week is the No 10 position. With Jonny Wilkinson and Danny Cipriani at home injured, Charlie Hodgson was the only fly half taken….. what a mistake. He had a shocker and the All Blacks targeted that channel really well. A change there is absolutely necessary and it looks like Olly Barclay will fill the void with Toby Flood or Jamie Noon filling the vacant centre position. Andrew Sheridan will also miss the 2nd test owing to an eye injury and I hope Nick Kennedy gets a shout in the 2nd row. A big task for England but if they don’t step up to the challenge they will get hammered!

I thought the Ireland v Australia game was a most entertaining one. I’m not sure how good the Aussies are, I suppose the Tri Nations will show that, but Ireland certainly pushed them all the way. The Aussies are finally getting rid of the “old guard” and giving players like Barnes the opportunity. Lote TIquri continues to push the tackle law to the limit! He hit Jerry Flannery near the end of the game and rattled his rib cage, but did not look to have used any arm whatsoever …..

The Wales game was a beauty and the scoreline certainly did not reflect the effort the Welsh put in. It was only a couple of late tries that flattered the Boks. Shane Williams and Gareth Cooper scored great individual tries and, in general, the performance of the Welsh was a great improvement on last week. The Boks did look slightly rattled when the going got tough and the Welsh kept within touching distance. Hopefully the Lions will learn a lot from the performance here and prepare accordingly for next year. I didn’t think the gamble of playing James Hook at 15 worked particularly well. He didn’t seem to have the same effect there as he does at 10 ……

Now what about Scotland!!!!!….they buggered up my predictions! A “stay of execution” for Frank Hadden? Nevertheless what a great result for the Scots. It’s no mean feat to go to Argentina, who finished 3rd at last years World Cup, and win ….. they must be delighted, plus their A Team meet England Saxons next week in the Churchill Cup Final …..

So, with the decisions expected to be confirmed soon about the fate of Coventry and the appeal by Pertemp Bees, my prediction is that it will all remain as it is …. if the decision does go against Coventry then the likelihood is that ND1 will reduce to 15 teams and there will be no promotion or further relegation issues …. If Pertemps win then Sedgely Park will drop into ND 2 … but expect them to go easily!!!!! ….. all will be revealed shortly. After writing this I have just found out that Coventry have been given a further 14 days to come up with assurances and fulfil conditions that will allow them to continue playing in National 1 next season. It seems to me that the RFU etc are doing all they can to give the club every opportunity to secure their immediate future ….

Very sad news this week. Neath scrum half Gareth Jones passed away on Monday following a serious neck injury sustained in a game between Neath and Cardiff back in April. My reason for including this is that when we were in Cardiff, following our game against Henley, a group of the Neath officials were in our hotel and this is when we became aware of what had happened. We at Redruth offer our sincere condolences and sympathies to his family, team mates and club…… tragic!

Here’s something … went down St Just last night to watch the Vinter Cup game between St Just, who are currently top of the Premier League, and Redruth, who are mid table in Cornwall Div 1. The young Reds team did exceptionally well to post a score of 132 after their 20 overs. St Just set about the task and motored to 50 for 0 off 4 and a bit overs! With, seemingly, no way of stemming the tide they moved swiftly towards their target. The mid order batsmen thought the game was over and proceeded to get changed … but the Reds had different ideas and proceeded to take 5 St Just wickets and push the game to 18 overs. It was comical to see the St Just players running back into the dressing to change back into their white’s to bat! ….as they say “It’s nev

r over until the fat lady sings!!!”

Only one prediction this weekend …. All Blacks 27 England 19 ….

That’s about it for this week … back next week

Cheers for now

David Penberthy

Director of Rugby

Well the internationals went pretty much to forecast!

The Mini Juniors AGM will be held at the Club next Thursday June 12th at 7.30pm.

Last week turned out to be