Old Otliensians first XV League game at Moortown was postponed due to the frost bound pitch. A new date under discussion.

Old Otliensians A 12

Moortown A 14

The sunny morning left the pitch in excellent condition for this Merit Table game and Otliensians welcomed back Dave Smith after injury. Otliensians began strongly with several good attacks and Peter Gilson at wing-forward put Smith, playing at No.8, in for an unconverted try after five minutes.

Moortown hit back strongly and a series of sweeping attacks from their quick handling backs were kept out by some resolute defence. With Alan Harker winning good line-out ball Otliensians eased their way back into the game but often all too readily gave hard earned ball back to Moortown.

Right on half-time a handling mistake following a speculative kick ahead from Moortown gifted them a try which was converted to give the visitors a narrow 5-7 lead.

Otliensians started slowly after the break but the hard working pack steadily began to gain the upper hand in all phases of play and Smith scored his second try from a pushover. Half-backs Aidie Crossfield and Kris Keinhorst initiated some promising moves and the Moortown line was under almost constant heavy pressure but the decisive score was not to be.

With limited opportunity, the Moortown backs still showed their capabilities but had to work with poor quality ball. However, in the last few minutes of the game they picked up a careless fly kick, spun the ball wide and outpaced the cover to score a try which was converted. Otliensians hit back directly and saw a penalty chance drift wide on the final whistle to conclude an entertaining game which should have resulted in a victory.

Club stalwart dies

Club Members were saddened to hear of the sudden death of Club stalwart Dave Jennings. Dave's active contribution to the running of the Club assisting as match manager, barman and touch judge among other duties, will be greatly missed as will his constant cheerfulness and unfailing sense of humour.

The thoughts of Club members are with his wife Diedre and family at this time.