Act for Blues

dropped down, or were coming back from injury, had no problem playing for the Twos, because we were that good; I remember Fergus Mulchrone played a heck of a lot for us; we even had Tommy Taylor back then, who played in the Cup Final for us”.

In 2012 after losing to Sedgley Park in the Cup Final, he says that he was sat in the changing rooms, after the game, thinking “where are all my mates”, some had moved down a team, or into the Vets or retired.

Turning to the younger players he said: “That’s it boys, that’s me finished, I’m going to play Vets Rugby with my mates next season”.

It was not to be, as later that month he was approached by Brendan Thomas, the Head

Coach at the time, at Wilmslow. Brendan tried to talk him into joining Wilmslow as a Player Coach in charge of the Forwards.

Rick says at the time the prospect of playing for Wilmslow was a bit difficult, but he thought about it on holiday and decided it was a way in to Coaching, and if he didn’t like it, he could always come back.

At age 41 he decided to give it a go, but after six months Brendan moved on to Sale FC and Rick took on the top job.

In the seven years that he was there, Wilmslow have enjoyed their most successful period, in recent times, Winning the Cheshire Vase and gaining promotion into North Premier.

Before the end of that first season in the North

Premier, Macclesfield approached Rick, to join Andy Appleyard as Forwards Coach.

Being Macclesfield through- and- through Rick had no hesitation and was excited to be coming back to his home Club.

His first season back nearly saw promotion back to the National Leagues only to be thwarted by, as he puts it, the ‘Duckwoth-Lewis’ calculation: “We finished third by point five of a point behind; but at the end of the day we can only blame ourselves for the silly games that we lost, and we know that; and now we’ve just got to make sure, that when we start again, that we just don’t repeat those bad mistakes.”

I asked Rick about the game itself, how we were playing, he said that he was excited about the running game that we were able to play, but equally that we need to know when to put it up the jumper, so to speak; “We had a very young squad last season and there were several times when up to 14 of the 18-man squad were all home-grown players, which is great to see.

“Come next season, a lot of these players will be that much more mature, being 18 months older.”

Talking about the young talent – like the sons-of the various Dads – Rick was extremely excited about their prospects.

Which led into talking about his 10 years coaching at Kings School: “I’ve Coached right the way through from 12-year-olds to the First Team, Guy Mason first got me involved, and now with Giles Hetherington and the First Team.”

Rick has watched all of Rob Davies’s boys make their progression through Kings School: “They are all good lads, it’s a real shame for Alex, as he’s missed the whole of his last season through the pandemic”.

I asked Rick about the new-comers to the Club: “There were quite a few last season, who have yet to play, but all look exciting prospects, we’ve also had one new-comer so far, since starting back, a Tight-Head Prop who’s moved up from Taunton.”

It’s great to have Jonah back at the Club, there has been many in the past, that have had a dalliance with the Waa-Waas – but they always return home!