The next match-up of the Cauliflower Club 1st XV (CCXV) will be held in Crookwell on March 30.
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The Crookwell Rugby Club’s Old Boys' team "the Dated Dogs" will face the CCXV, a team backed by a World-Cup winning coach and a selection of former Wallabies and regional rugby players.
The game will feature former Wallabies and “provincial greats” Peter FitzSimons, Steve Larkham, Dean Mumm, Geoff ‘the Duke’ Didier and Pat McCutcheon. Larkham and McCutcheon will debut.
Members of the Crookwell Dogs playing for the CCXV include Dave Page, Neil Seaman and Dan Wetherall.
The guest coach will be Bob Dwyer AM. In 1991, Dwyer coached the Wallabies to World Cup victory. He will be assisted by country coach, Emily Madge, who is both the women and juniors' coach for the Young Yabbies Rugby Union Club. The referee will be Forbes' Murray Fraser.
The game is being hailed as a "compelling display of pillage and plunder".
“The CCXV Old Boys are paddock warriors and broken-down rugby heroes with more guts than greatness,” manager Steve Adamson said. “With only two set moves in their arsenal, but more props than a Returned and Services League buffet, this motley bunch of mercenaries is sure to entertain.”
FitzSimons and Nick Farr-Jones set up the Cauliflower Club charity in 2012. It raises money to provide equipment to those with a disability or catastrophic injury, mainly due to sport-related injuries, and is a men's health initiative.
"The CCXV is a vehicle to do that but is an opportunity for old rugby boys to also get together and relive the camaraderie.
"No one knows what each person is going through at that time in their lives, and the peer support ... is important to the players.
“For those less familiar with the great game of rugby, the charity is so named for its sincere adoration for the unsung heroes of the forward pack with their mangled cauliflower ears on the front line of the rugby battlefield, rather than their quicker, twinkle-toed brethren in the back line.”
The Crookwell RSL will host a lunch at 11am with guest speaker FitzSimons.
At Memorial Park, the U16 Trinity Rugby team will play an exhibition match at 1.30pm, followed by the Dated Dogs and CCXV at 2.30pm. Round one of the Monaro 2nd Division, Crookwell Dogs and Gungahlin Eagles will kick off at 3.30pm.
