It's been a while since we welcomed the massed ranks of the RAF Vultures to Kingsey Road and much water under the bridge. There is a school of thought in some eminent revisionist historians that Neville Chamberlain was not a weak appeaser to Hitler's regime, but a strategically clever negotiator who by delaying the inevitable war for two years gave the country breathing room to rearm and modernise the armed forces and defend our Sceptred Isle in 1940.

So it was in this spirit that newly promoted Air Chief Marshall Nobby Warner had cleverly utilised the last two years to completely upgrade his flagging fleet and invest in new state of the art strike force. Out with the old, slow biplanes that many of his predecessors had stuck with for far too long and in with the shiny new, immediately lowering the average age by a good decade or more.

A powerful and elusive Barbarian style back line of Greg, Frank, Fats, Ox, Trev, Conor and Hacky augmented with the youngsters of Ludders and Grizz in the forwards. Newlywed Hackshaw was making his debut for the vets, so he was congratulated and then commiserated for these two significant life events.

Warner has been hugely busy during lockdown and unbeknownst to many he has spent a large amount of time and money attending a Harvard Business School Motivational Speaking course, believing that this soupcon of extra polish would be the crowning glory of his captaincy, now unbeaten for over two years. So he was rightly well pleased after delivering his new styled crii de coeur as he watched with joyful pride his team mates leave the changing room with tear filled eyes. Money well spent!

It was only when our resident Fifth Columnist Lord Haw Haw Bridges in his increasingly desperate attempts to regain what he believes to be his rightful office of Captain, that he believes was so cruelly snatched away from him on the Raid to Ibiza that questions began to be asked. Bemoaning to anyone that would listen that Warner's newly acquired oratorial prowess was not what it seemed and the tears in the boys eyes were of hilarity and not of emotion, and surely this most esteemed office needs someone of more serious gravitas, officer class material.

The game started at a tremendous lick, the boys remarkably showing no rustiness with the enforced two-year breather. The superstar backline, with well over 500 1st team appearances between them, resembled a barbarian team with three Irishmen, a Scot, a Samoan, an Englishman and a pseudo Welshman. They were just too hot to handle and within no time Hackshaw twinkle toed down the touchline and fed Trev to crash over. Greg converted from the touchline to go 7-0 up.

Fats was proving far too much of a handful for his opposition midfield in attack and defence. The Vulture's game plan seemed to revolve around sending a big centre or 8 up the middle, but this quickly proved to be somewhat futile as their runners hit the granite wall of Junior's tackling leaving several of them crumpled on the ground. In attack the trademark show and go with the hitch kick had the opposition grabbing at thin air, another searing break fed Begley on the wing. Conor seemed to be playing in a different time dimension as he beat three defenders at to the uninitiated was little more than walking pace and then offloaded to the ridiculously fit Luke tracking on the inside. Again, Skindog added the extras, 14-0.

The half back fulcrum was purring in its well oiled efficiency as the large crowd witnessed a master class in game management, distributing, running and kicking from Greg and Frank. Ox was proving a powerful straight running foil to the silky running of Fats and when he crashed over to extend the lead close to half time the game was looking like it would be a comfortable win, 21-5. However things could not last and Fats was finally shot down by friendly fire when a somewhat erratic pass put too much strain on is hamstrings as he over reached to take it. As he hobbled off there was an audible sigh of relief from the entire Vultures squad.

The Vultures upped the tempo in the second half and this is when our experienced pack came to the fore with good defending from set-piece and their driving maul. A typical Rix turnover in the maul led to a lightening counter attack which ended with Russel outpacing the cover, 28-5.

Superior fitness would inevitably show in the last quarter and the Vultures with some big, powerful runners scored tries in quick succession to close the gap to 28-24. The forwards seemed slightly bemused having won good lineout ball on the halfway they turned round to see the ball bobbling towards the goal line with several Vultures in hot pursuit and no defenders to be seen. It was squeaky bum time but another fluent attack featuring Grizz, Ludders and Bobby saw Hacky finish off a move which sealed the win.

Great to see such a spectacle after two barren years and hopefully the evident enjoyment with no little skill and panache will rekindle the fire in the squad and many watching to turn out again in numbers over the next few months.

The bar was busy and abuzz with delight as the lads bathed in the post match glow. It was though a slightly worrying sign of this new generation, maybe the Instagram/influencer generation when Skindog proudly announced that he is without doubt the best looking man to have ever played for the Oxen. This took some of the old lags somewhat by surprise as it's a pretty low bar and anyone who's still in possession of some hair, teeth and was not sporting a rather large lean to would immediately make any short list. But the old lags knew that it wasn't the battle, it was the war that counted and Skindog still has some way to go to match the all round charm and attraction of some of the Oxen's legendary smoothies. No names, no pack drill!