ROUNDHEGIANS 3

OTLIENSIANS 33

OTLIENSIANS visited Chelwood Drive on Saturday well aware that it was not a happy hunting ground for the club and that their opponents were two leagues above them.

Their cause was not helped by a forced change at both half-back positions although replacements Neil Birkett and Steve Foster in the event acquitted themselves very well.

The game opened reasonably for Otliensians with some good forward play in rucks and mauls but after ten minutes they lost prop Andrew Rayner to be replaced by Peter Bonner.

Both sides in the first 20 minutes felt each other out and whilst the teams were fairly even up front in this period and produced some good ball both sets of backs handled poorly at times and wasted opportunities.

The only scores in this period were via an exchange of penalty goals, Dave Smith converting for the visitors.

It was Otliensians who seized the initiative when after 20 minutes from a scrum on the home 22 Neil Birkett broke blind and Matt Tenniswood made a good thrusting run for the line to score in the corner. Although Smith missed the difficult conversion he made up for this minutes later with a second well struck penalty for an off-side infringement.

Otliensians gradually got on top with some strong forward play and excellent tackling by both forwards and backs. The forwards time and again pushed their opponents off the ball. Half-time saw Otliensians11-3 up.

A further penalty by Dave Smith early in the second-half led to some sustained attacking play by Roundhegians in the third quarter but Otliensians' defence was solid with some great tackles by skipper Andy Rockett, Dave Roberts and Peter Tempest in the forwards and Andy Haywood and Chris Bawden in the backs.

Turning defence into attack Dave Smith made a good deep kick into the home 22 and from the ensuing line-out and a good rolling maul Tony Twist drove over closely assisted by Peter Bonner to bring the score to 19-3 with 15 minutes to go. Otliensians then began to turn the screw with the forwards increasing their dominance. Following some sustained pressure close to the home line Neil Birkett, demonstrating age has not dulled his sharpness, robbed the ball from the back of the scrum to score a good opportunist try. This was his second touchdown, the first a minute or two earlier being disallowed.

Dave Smith added the conversion.

Otliensians continued to dominate and with a few minutes to go Steve Foster made a good break under pressure to score by the posts. Theh conversion by Smith made it 33-3.

This result came from a base of improved forward play, particularly at the set pieces with the line-out providong better results than in previous weeks. It was nevertheless a good team effort with the backs also much involved with some hard work, particularly in disrupting the opposition line with good tackling.

This was a well-earned victory and should give them encouragement going into their next league game. This is against Bramley at home on Saturday kicking-off at 3 pm and all spectators are most welcome.

Otliensians A 10

Yarnbury B 12

Yarnbury thirds got back to winning ways with the retrun of skipper Matthew Brown at scrum-half and Gary Walker at outside centre.

This turned out to be the expected closely fought game with a Mick Pound try putting Yarnbury ahead at the death.

Otliensians had opened the scoring a little against the run of play when a try was engineered and finished by Kurt Nutchey. He made good ground down the wing to put Brian Isherwood away and although he was tackled over the line and the ball went loose the referee deemed it had gone backwards and Nutchey was there to score. The try was converted by Andrew Wells.

Wells then added a penalty goal to put Otliensians 10-0 ahead.

Yarnbury struggled in the first-half being unable to retain their own line-out ball and having to live on scraps. Otliensians on the other hand were securing good line-out ball through Chris Haywood and Darren Hardie while Wells was enjoying a good game at scrum-half in his first appearance in that position for some time.

Yarnbury's spirit showed through however and well into the second-half some good running resulted in prop Rupert Hutton barnstorming over for a try which Michael Arnott converted.

Yarnbury tails were up as their ex player Baz Dowson left the field. The Yarnbury front row of Hutton, Smith and Woolfitt exerted pressure and it was these three who secured the win for Yarnbury by taking one against the head on the home five metre line. The ball was passed along the line to Mick Pound who went in for a well-deserved try. Yarnbury held out for the last five minutes with some spirited defence with fly-half Tim Brown their Man-of-the-Match.

Otliensians B 19

Skipton A 19

This was an excellent game enjoyed by all the players and particularly it was about the referee who set a fine example allowing the teams to play. The score fluctuated throughout but it was not until the dying minutes that Otliensians scored a try which levelled the scores.

The conversion failed but it would have been an injustice as a draw was a fair result to an excellent encounter.

Otliensians' points came from a try by Jonathan Woods, making his first appearance for the club and following in the footsteps of his father John Woods.

Tne try was converted by Neil Moore who added a try and conversion himself.

His brother Shane scored a try on the stroke of time to level the game. The B Team benefitted from the experience and know-how of Dave Byford and Dan Ridgeway.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.