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Chapter 1: Between The Sticks

A pale winter sun shone yellow light on Miranda's upturned apple cheeks, as she nestled her blonde head into the sling holding Dirk's dislocated shoulder in place.

Her eyes glinting sapphire-blue, she looked up at his chiselled features...."I love the way you always smell of embrocation," she said.

"Oh you are a silly," he smiled, spitting a fragment of tooth into theΜύ bucket at his feet.

They shared a moment's warm silence, before the six-foot flanker summoned up the courage to speak: "He's offside, you blind get..."

Later, by the warmth of the committee room fire, Miranda celebrated their love with a half of mild shandy: "I'm so happy," she said.

"Me, too," said Dirk, "especially now we've beaten Old Waberthwetians."

It seemed no shadow could darken their day - until they were roused from their reverie by the sound of a crutch thumping across the clubhouse floor.

"So - Dirk van Musselbaum and Miranda Blindside....my two favourite people in the WHOLE world...."

It was "Donkey" Jones, the club's third-team tight-head prop, whose training ground clash with Dirk had left both men sidelined by injury.

"...fancy seeing you here," he leered.

"Oh go away, you monster," cried Miranda, clutching Dirk's hand with all her essence.

"Yes, go away before I give you more of the same," said the loose forward, his cheekbones flushed with sudden vehemence.

Jones sneered, spun on his crutch, and lurched towards the bar for yet another pint of snakebite and aftershave.

"I really don't like that man," murmured Dirk. "And will you please let go of my arm, you stupid woman."

Miranda recoiled, wounded by the inconsiderate need for womanly reassurance which had seen her pull her beau's shoulder back out of joint.

"I'll see you in A&E," he said. "I'd follow you anywhere," she sighed, looking longingly at his broad back as he stormed into the changing rooms for a surreptitious fag.....

Chapter 2: Love Rules

As the months elapsed and winter turned to summer, Miranda luxuriated in her love for Dirk. So it was a dark, dismal day when he turned to her and said: "They've changed the law regarding handling in the tackle situation again."

Instinctively, she knew what this meant: not only would it result in her beautiful beloved becoming even further exposed to the flying studs of every headhunter in league D - it would also slow down ball to the backs.

"How beastly," she ejaculated. "Why can't they just leave us alone?"

"Because the course of true love ne'er runs smooth," Dirk replied..."and it's not the job of the RFU to provide an entertaining game which spectators can understand...."

Chapter 3: A Bunch Of Love

It was while Miranda embroidered monogrammed snotrags by the warm glow of the fire that the telephone purred its friendly warning.

"Clapton Basset 349...."

"Miranda, it's me." Her heart thrilled as she recognised the voice of Dirk van Musselbaum, first XV flanker and captain of her heart.

"Open the front door and look outside."

Leaping like a lamb, she skipped to the door to find a pink-ribboned package hidden between the begonias and the bins.

She picked it up and - barely able to contain herself - ripped it open as she ran back to the phone.

"Oh darling, you shouldn't have....really, it's just what I've always wanted....a bunch of lips and ears...."

"I KNEW you'd be pleased...I picked them myself....at the bottom of a collapsed scrum...."

Chapter 4: A Femme Called Fat Al

It was half-past four on a soft and spittle-specked Saturday afternoon in Clapton Basset.

Donkey Jones and the rest of the 3rds had just trooped mud into the clubhouse for the first of fifteen pints of lager, when all heads turned towards a tall and tantalising figure.

" I say, ding dong," said Jones, his gumshield dropping to the floor. Through lids half-closed by the butting of brows, even HE could make out the visitor's voluptuous vital statistics.

With a flick of her burnished blonde curls and a flicker of her shining ruby lips, she approached the bar. She oozed sex, and dripped desire.

"Hiya," said the vision in lipgloss and gumboots, "I'm the new rugby reporter for the Basset Bugle....I'm looking for Dirk van Musselbaum."

"He's not here," said Jones, his slack jaw a-drool. "He's playing away." He noticed a precisely-pencilled eyebrow arch at the phrase.

"Who's looking for him?"

"Just tell him Tahula Johnson-Black WANTS him," said the statuesque scribbler, turning on her elegant Vibram heel.

Just as all eyes had watched her enter the club, now all followed her exit...not least those of pie and pea girl Annette Curtain....

"So, she's after Dirk," she mused...."I wonder what Miranda will make of that...."

Chapter 5: Full-Time

"It's been quite a day," said Dirk, tilting his square jaw towards Miranda's upturned apple cheeks. "Whoever thought it'd come to such a fairytale ending...."

"Not I," said the bright-eyed blonde, barely able to keep a smile from playing around her lips like a Welsh scrum-half at the rear of a ruck.

"I never dreamed I'd be in such a fantastic, loving relationship.....then again, I never thought that Tahula would enter our lives in such a way...."

"No. And she certainly makes a beautiful bride...." van Musselbaum cast a wistful eye at the statuesque scribbler as she posed for pictures on the church path. Putting her clothes back on, she stopped to kiss her new husband, 3rd XV tight-head Donkey Jones.

Dirk couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Miranda's jealousy of Tahula hadn't sent her running into the open arms of Annette Curtain.

"Well," said his former love, "it's goodbye then." She linked arms with the pie girl. "I hope you enjoy playing for Batley - loser."

As he watched the pair parade off into a sunset of sapphic brilliance, the flanker couldn't help wondering: "What on earth am I going to rugby league for...they don't even have flankers...."