It’s that time again when we welcomed our friends from the other side of Northampton. The time when various elders of the Mawby and Muddiman tribes, together with their cousins, venture out in their droves to be fed and watered then proceed to tell tales of how good it was in their day. Of course it was good back then, but in those days you could still get a train to Olney or even tether your horse outside the Two Brewers. The two sides today would be aiming to provide some good entertainment for the crowds gathered on the occasion of our President's Day.

With a bit of a breeze in their favour the early exchanges seemed to be in favour of the visitors and they showed their intent by spending the first 10 minutes of the match in the Olney 22. Only some stout defending kept them at bay and when James Brock snapped up a loose ball and broke from deep the chance was on to open the game somewhat. He found Struan Brooks who eventually found the try line following a typically jinking run. Olney realised this was to be the way to put points on the board and with the forwards matching those of Buckby, they were winning enough good ball to produce some classic running rugby. This was made a little easier with the Buckby 8 having a 10 minute spell on the side. The tries then followed on a regular basis.

Good hands after a quick penalty allowed Harvey Dench room wide on the right to score his first of the day. A scrum won against the head and the ball along the backs fed Phil Bowden who showed his pace for another try and Will Ecclestone, after some fine support play between the forwards, dotted down left of the posts shortly after. A break again from deep started by Stu Livesey and finished by him involving some interplay up the field added more points. The backs were on song now and another break from inside their own 22 was finished by Elliot Simpson arriving at speed and Brooks finished off the scoring for the half when he touched down under the posts. Half time score 43-0

Olney made a couple of changes for the second half with Graham Smith on for Jim “Tiger King” Osborn and Charlie Harris replacing Chris Caswell. The forwards were still letting the backs have the glory but they too were performing admirably with Harvey Dunn and Cobie Chapman both having particularly good games all afternoon. Dench pounced on a mistake and turned on power and pace for his second try close to the posts to take the score to 50 points following the conversion.

There then came a bit of a lull in proceedings from Olney’s point of view while Ecclestone had his own spell in the bin which Buckby capitalised on to drive over the line from close range. The final 20 minutes saw a bit of reshuffling when Noddy Deighton came on at scrum half but this did not alter the patterns of play as the backs still wanted to show their capabilities. Brooks fielded a box kick and did all the work himself, evading tackles to score under the posts. Deighton broke up field from a lineout to feed on to Livesey who dummied the defence for his second and the final try of the match was a fine piece of play between Brooks and Bowden with Bowden finishing the move. Where was Jeff and his camera this week? 11 tries, 7 converted by Ewan Fuller and the final score of 69-5 meant that Olney had the well-deserved bonus point and also the Muddiman cup.

Overall this was a good day at the office for Olney and not the result that Buckby would have wanted but this does not diminish the respect and friendship both clubs have for each other in what is reputedly one of the oldest continuous fixtures in club rugby.

Since the Harris offspring have moved out to their own home Mr and Mrs Harris have been hosting intimate dinner parties and Mr Harris has also turned his hand to helping in the kitchen. The guests arrived early one evening to find him crimping the edge of a chicken pie with his false teeth. Somewhat shocked at this they asked if he had a tool instead. “Yes” he replied “But I only use that for the doughnuts!”