CALNE'S rugby players could not face another drop after they were forced to cut short their world cup celebrations to play Minety.

Many of the players started drinking in the Recreation Club before the England vs Australia final kicked off at 9am, and were stunned when they were told they had to play the afternoon fixture.

Calne captain Mike Charlwood had tried to postpone the match all week, but Minety's players voted ten to two to play the game. Charlwood said Minety insisted on going ahead because they had not played a game for three weeks after their pitch was declared unplayable one week and the referee failed to turn up the week after.

"At Thursday night's training we picked a team, expecting the game to be called off," he said.

"Many of them didn't believe me when I told them they had to play. So we threw people in the back of a van, trekked over to Minety and played a drunken game of rugby.

"Some people didn't finish drinking until 1pm, but it's difficult to get seven pints of lager and a couple of after shocks out of your system in a ten minute warm up."

Incredibly Charlwood said Calne's forwards dominated the early exchanges, but after one maul, when the match threatened to explode, the referee had to interject and tell the players their 'alcoholic bravado wasn't needed.'

"I couldn't understand why they went ahead with the game," he said. "England reach the final and they still wanted to play?

"But they said they needed a game to keep up their match fitness. The captain was very apologetic, but he asked for a vote to be called so he couldn't ignore the players' decision.

"I said to him after the match, we're probably the two most unpopular people in the clubhouse."

The captain said the league agreed to allow the postponement of matches on world cup final day, but only if both sides agreed and they were informed before Wednesday.But Charlwood said he simply could not get hold of Minety to discuss the situation before Friday when it was to late.