OA’s (15) v Datchworth (31)

Posted by Icarus Bryant-Fowler.

A really fantastic effort from the boys today, the best of the season, to quote Phil.

Allegedly, I was a tad harsh on the boys in the last bad weather write-up, so I promise to accentuate the positive today, which given the way the boys played, should be a relatively simple task.

Wet, windy and generally miserable conditions, dictated that this was never going to be a feast of running rugby, but the boys did gird their loins and put in a great all round effort to grind out a hard fought victory today.

Today was always going to be about forward grunt and capitalising on opponents errors, and boy did we do just that. A hard fought first half, with Datchworth playing into the wind, ended with the two teams evenly matched at 5 all.

In the second half, with the wind at their backs Datchworth began to take control and exert a dominant hold over OAs. Our forwards really did work their socks off today, once they realised that they could win the ball by counter rucking. When OAs tried to raise their game and fight back, Datchworth kept their heads, absorbed pressure and kept OAs tries to the wings, making the conversion attempts very difficult. They even fought back with a quick score after conceding. Datchworth harried and chased really well today, never giving OAs any time to settle on the ball and build pressure. This resulted in one interception try and a charged down kick leading to another try for Datchworth.
Overall a really good effort from the boys today. There are still things we can improve on, but the unity and team spirit of the boys is growing stronger by the week.

Man of the Match was given to Logan, for chasing for at least two charge downs.

DOTD was awarded to Harry Philips, for not owning up to the ref that he had knocked the ball on, over the line, and claiming the awarded try!! All though Ieuan was a very close second for trying to play scrum-half from 20m away from the ruck!!

I will try and get a tour update out later, suffice to say for now that Dan Lowe has kindly agreed to be Tour Manager.