|
Old Sulians II (6) Versus Oldfield III (21) |
|
|
|
|
Written by Lloyd Madden
|
|
Friday, 11 January 2008 |
|
“ A dish best served cold” 
The post match hospitality at Sulians on Saturday tasted distinctly of paella for our victorious third team. Oldfield welcomed back some old faces to bolster the ranks for a difficult away trip to Landsdown. Kev “mad dog” Escott returned to captain Oldfield after recovering from a recent stingray attack and along with bedfellow Chris Coombes gave Oldfield a reassuring robustness.
Coombes returns to Oldfield after a couple of seasons sidelined due to a long recovery from a complete right knee/lower leg replacement; Kev carried out the replacement single-handedly. Rog Parker marshalled his back line from 10 including Sean Campbell on the wing fresh from his university holidays. Skipper Andy Murphy was unfortunately unavailable due to a liposuction appointment!!!!!!!!!
The game started slowly for Oldfield with 15mins of early pressure from Sulians resulting in two scoring penalties from three. Things looked ominous for the visitors until some bruising tackles from Rich Stainer, JR and McRae galvanised the pack into action. From the 20minute mark, Oldfield began their revival and purposefully pushed Sulians back into their 22. A Parker bomb deep into the Sulians 22 yielded an Oldfield scrum. The resulting back row move gifted open side flanker Gobey some space to attack and duly score the games first try.
Oldfield now fell into their stride with a solid platform up front gifting young Laner and his back line clean possession. Both sides endeavoured to play attractive rugby in difficult conditions, however Sulians’ errors allowed Oldfield to press for further scores. As the half ended a speculative hack through on 39 minutes from Laner appeared to be destined for the dead ball line until a determined chase by centre Kojack caught out a sleeping Sulians full back to score a try just on the stroke of half time.
The 8-point cushion allowed Oldfield to express themselves in the second half; the back row (JR, Kev & Gobey) in particular played well and facilitated some intricate passing movements between both forwards and backs. With the advantages of slope and increased confidence, Oldfield took a strangle hold on the game. The back row nullified any Sulians forward momentum and backs March, Dineen and full back Laggatt put in some tough tackles to stop further back line attacks from the hosts.
Replacement wing Dan Gallagher found himself on the end of a series of Oldfield drives to claim the games final score. The final 10 minutes saw the home team (with some fresh replacements) strive to breach the Oldfield try line. However today, the thirds were in uncompromising mood and tackled hard to the final minute to dispel any thoughts the home team had of scoring.
Oldfield III:
White, Stainer, McRae, Chapman, Pridmore, JR, Gobey, Escott, Laner, Parker, Kojack, Dineen, March, Campbell, Laggatt.
Subs: Coombes, Pearce, Gallagher, Gillett.
Tries:
Gobey, Kojack, Gallagher |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 11 January 2008 )
|
Match Reports 
Fixtures 2007 - 2008