It hasn’t gone unnoticed by the club that crime figures have recently been increasing, so with this in mind they have just purchased a guard dog from the blacksmith in Stagsden. A wise investment as he’d only been there half an hour when he made a bolt for the door.

This Saturday saw the rearranged fixture against Scouts, which would always be a tough one as they are sitting towards the top end of the table and have had some impressive results all season.

Olney again took to the field with several changes from last week’s victory but managed to bring in players with a mixture of youth and experience who have progressed from the colts and through the seconds which is always a good sign of success within the club. Both sides started well and tested the defence on a number of occasions but it was Scouts who got the first points on the board after 10 minutes when a simple move in the backs following a lineout resulted in a try under the posts. Olney’s cause was hampered somewhat with the loss of Stu Livesey and James Brock to injury in the space of 5 minutes. With both centres missing a bit of reshuffling occurred but Scouts took advantage with another backs move resulting in a try wide on the right. A third try followed when good support after a tap tackle on the winger gave Scouts the chance to extend their lead. James Gardner pulled one back for Olney when finishing a move on the left, converted by Charlie Hicks, Olney then got well into things and had several good attacks but were thwarted by some solid defence. Scouts forwards had a few trundles but the score of 19-7 remained until half time.

Early in the second half, a slight altercation strangely saw only one yellow card. Unfortunately it was for Olney’s Will Edwards. Again Scouts took advantage and after some sustained pressure found a gaping hole in the middle to score close to the posts. Olney were never going to give up though and after winning a scrum on Scouts 22, a chip through was pounced on by Harvey Dench for the try. Scouts hit back shortly after when their backs found room behind the Olney defence to score. Despite some good attacking spells from Olney when a couple of chances could have resulted in tries, it was Scouts who turned pressure into points with their 5th try of the afternoon. A final try late into the game after some hard running and support play made the final score 45-14 to Old Scouts. Ultimately it proved to be just too big a task for Olney and the better team won on the day. One doesn’t like to single players out but there were some fine individual performances, particularly from Tommy Herman and captain Eddie Goss. This, and the way Olney stuck to the task throughout the whole 80 minutes, was enough to give the travelling supporters something to smile about on the way home.

We heard on the grapevine that a few club members attended a function at a pub in Wolverton last Wednesday featuring the world’s worst faith healer. Apparently he was so bad that even a bloke in a wheelchair got up and walked out!