Another away day, another lunch ruined by the road warriors with a 26-31 win away at Hertford RFC.
Not the greatest of starts to the match as a certain unnamed winger was signalled offside for the first OC KO. Unluckily for him it was right in front of the home fans… cue 40mins of heckling. A strong defensive effort followed by a dominant scrum allowed OCs to regather possession for some well worked phases. A lot of back and forth over the next 18 minutes until Hertford went over for the first points of the day. Luckily OCs had a hidden weapon; Napper unleashed new superstar Logan from a short goal line dropout from Hertford. Looking like there was nowhere to go, he bounced through 3 players before stepping the fullback to get his first try for the senior team and OCs first points of the day. Hertford returned strong and some individual brilliance from them put them over for their second try. Again, it didn’t take long for OCs to reciprocate with some strong defensive work leading to us regaining possession and Louis Baker do what he does best… bouncing through players and over for our second try.
More pressure and more back and forth, until OCs got the next points courtesy of Louis again flattening more players and putting OCs 14-21 up heading into halftime (all conversions made by Napper).
The second half started well, safe hands from the skipper collecting the KO before a couple of phases allowing the exit. A few well worked phases later and OCs were over for their third of the afternoon thanks again Logan charging through and offloading to a supporting Jed (14-26).
Unfortunately Hertford weren’t done yet, good attacking play from them plus a few lucky bounces of the ball and they were over for their third and fourth try (26-26).
Where other teams may have crumbled, content with how they played so far, OCs did not. Relentless pressure (both attacking and defensively) from both teams lead to one of the most back and forth second half’s I’ve ever seen, bouncing from try line to try line but no points scored until Logan – not yet content with one try and one assist on his debut – went over for OCs 5th and final try in the corner (26-31). Hertford applied more pressure to get that final try to win but our stalwart defence remained strong on our line. 2 mins left of the game we regained possession, forwards working hard to get away from our line before Napper cleared for a line out on our 22. 40secs left, Hertford lining up for a monster attack… unfortunately for them they didn’t count on the most clutch of plays from Ethan Collins, stealing their line out and a couple phases later, game over.
OCs once again showing why we belong in this league, showing that it takes more than a lively home crowd and a coach journey to break us.
MOTM deservedly given to Logan, whose defence and attack was a massive game changer in a tough game.
Up the OCs!
