Cobwebs Firmly Blown to One Side

With the Old Boys facing 1st XV sides in the league this year, this will to be a new challenge for this crop of A XV players. The RBS fixture was taken so the ODs had experience of taking on a highly competitive 1st XV who aim to do well in Kent 1 this year after being promoted.

Arriving at the ground, now mostly owned by Crystal Palace FC, it was very apparent that the rugby pitch was slightly neglected, with grass at least 2 times the length that it should of been. There were a handful of new faces making their debut for the ODRFC, notable mentions, Diarmuid Raleigh, Tai Nguyen (last second call up to the front row), Tom Slaney (playing out of position at flanker), Luke Leicester (continuing the tradition for the the A XV of broken feet).

From KO the OD's went hard at the Bank side. The forwards dominating at the break down with great offloads which ended up with a bursting run from Andy Wren (returning from Uni) who off loaded at the last moment to Matthew Payne to cross the whitewash for the first points of the day and easily converted by Simon Burgess.
At this point the Old Boys took their foot off of the gas, maybe forgetting how much hard work it was to get the first 7 points. A mixture of failing to press in defence, not executing defensive manoeuvres worked on in training and the odd missed tackle allowed RBS to score three unanswered tries. Not to say that the A XV were not trying, but not executing the defensive structure worked on in training against a fit, running, side gave the opposition plenty of scope to take advantage of holes left wide open.

This was all rectified at the quick water break on the 20 minute mark. The Old Boys got back to business in attack as well with the back line looking slick and the likes of Matthew Payne being held up just short of the the line on more than one occasion and Luke Leicester just running out of space when bearing down on the try line. Unfortunately during one of these line breaks Luke Leicester went into contact and in the resulting collision broke a bone in his foot, rule-ling him out of the next few weeks. We hope he has a speedy recovery.
This pressure finally paid off with Luke Jebb crashing over in the corner and Simon Burgess converting from the touch line right on the half time whistle. Half time score RBS 17 - 14 A XV

The Old Boys came out to the second half as they left the first, slick back moves punching holes and finally giving possession over to the forwards to finish the job, Andy Wren crossing the try line to regain the lead in the second half. But again to mirror the first half, the chance to hold on to our new lead was thrown away with two RBS tries. The feeling was the A XV were still in this game to win it and the Old Boys wrestled control back in the last 10 minutes with veteran Jean-Pierre Mills getting the final points of the match with a powerful run, that has been seen many times before, dragging defenders with him to cross the line. This last surge was just a little too late.

Full time score was RBS 29 - 24 A XV. A match the Old Boys will kick themselves for. The feeling after the match was that this was a hard contested fixture that the ODs could of won. Man of the match went to Tai Nguyen on his debut for his hard rucking and strong carrying.

A small rest now before the A XV next preseason fixture against a Greenwich 1st XV who play their rugby in Kent 2. Another tough challenge but plenty of training sessions to come to iron out the few wrinkles.