Another week, another balls-up. This week it was a delay in publishing this match report which was down to last season’s official match journalist clearly telling this season’s official match journalist, “It’s OK, I’ll do it this week”. Then not doing it at all. Well, that is what will be reported and printed, so in the year 3045, when avid Olney RFC archivists are thumbing through old match reports, that’s what they’ll read. And believe.

Anyway…to the match itself. Olney kicked off with a useful tailwind and were soon awarded a scrum. “Oh dear” we thought and sure enough, immediate scrum penalty to ‘Street. However, any negative thoughts you may have been thinking need to stop here as the pack accounted for themselves admirably in the tight from then on, despite ‘Street’s front five attempting to portray themselves as having some sort of Tough Guy image…lots of wide-eyed stares and “Grrrs!” but unfortunately these only manifested themselves in the form of passes going to ground and knock-ons…if anyone was going to score first it would be the home side. And they did. On 10 minutes, Olney were awarded a scrum and following Rob Morgan picking and going, the ball from the resultant ruck was spun out to Mac Kitchener who drove up the ground 25m before offloading to Henry Warren to touch down. Charlie Hicks converted to make it 7–0 on 13 minutes.

‘Street responded quickly with some strong running especially from their star player, the No.8 and after a while, won a penalty that, from the catch and drive line-out, they were able to roll a few mauls around before spinning wide to their centre to score. Their kicker was unable to decipher the East Stand Swirl and missed the conversion.

Shortly afterwards, after a fine interception and run from Mac Kitchener, Olney RFC 1st team Sponsor and openside flanker Cobey Chapman was unable to find the pace to finish off the move and the ball was cleared by the ‘Street winger, only to find Ewan who chipped through for Hector Stanbridge to chase and touch down. Despite a ‘Street player clearly saying to Lee, “He got it down, ref”, the match official disallowed the score and denied Olney any further scores in the match. On the stroke of half-time, after taking the ‘Street No.8 head-on at full tilt, Hector was replaced by Luca at half-time but was soon making some useful carries. Josh Wheeler also came on and made some crucial carries and tackles. Unfortunately, the turning point of the match came after a missed penalty kick to touch resulted in a massive 5-22 from ‘the ‘Street centre. The resultant line-out turned into a scrum for ‘Street who were able to bundle themselves over for a try and conversion to make the score 7-12. There then followed a pretty dull period which lasted until the end of the game with no team looking like scoring, and they didn’t. Final result…an away 7-12 win for Broadstreet.

So, Olney are still second from bottom but at least the scrum has gotten some confidence back. However, they must find a way to win against these teams of a similar standard, especially at home.

[Pic - Cobie thought sponsoring the team and having his name on the Shirt's would mean he didn't lose his ;) - Massive thanks for your commitment to The Club]