17 Oct 09

Midlands 2 West (South)
Old Coventrians 25 - Old Laurentians 9

If OLs travelled to Coventry expecting an easy ride against a side which had lost all four of its league games before this one, they were in for a rude awakening. Not only did Old Coventrians spring a major surprise, they did so with some ease, scoring four tries to none and outplaying OLs in most areas of the game.

The OC’s side that took the field on Saturday was reinforced and strengthened from the team that had endured such a miserable start to the season, but this doesn’t explain OL’s lacklustre response to the challenge they posed. Their defensive game was well below par, the tackling woeful at times, and the direct running style of OC’s backs and flankers exposed some serious deficiencies.

This was demonstrated by the first try when OC’s outside centre left a trail of would be tacklers in his wake as he was allowed to run fifty metres down the touchline to score. A hopeful punt down the middle was then fielded by OC’s full back who made a lot of ground through heavy midfield traffic before putting his wing over for the second try.

Ben Wiles kept OLs in touch with three penalties, but OC’s fly half responded with one and converted one of the tries to leave his side 15-9 ahead at the break, a situation that was far from hopeless for OLs.

But, despite spending much of the second half in opposition territory, OLs totally lacked the imagination to break down a hard tackling and alert OC’s defensive effort; and they were handicapped throughout by slow and laboured possession from scrums.

The home side were not above a few shady tactics to slow the game down illegally and had two men yellow carded, putting OL’s effort into an even poorer light as they were up against fourteen men for a quarter of the game.

OC’s excellent number 6, always a thorn in Laurentians’ side, broke wide from the base of a scrum and made thirty metres before he was hauled down, offloading from the tackle to his full back who ran in for the score and a 20-9 lead. Then, and not for the first time, OLs lost possession in contact and the home side moved the ball quickly into the open spaces to run in the final try from deep in their own half.

OL’s day was summed up by an incident in the final quarter when they were pressing the opposition line and OC’s number 5 illegally prevented release, to be banished to the sin bin. The referee heard some unnecessary Laurentian backchat and reversed his penalty award. So, instead of taking a penalty five metres from the try line, OLs found themselves defending an OC’s lineout on the halfway line!

OLs take on Banbury in the second round of the Intermediate Cup at Fenley Field this Saturday, kicking off at 2.30. The visitors are the unbeaten leaders of the parallel league to OLs in Midlands East and will pose a serious threat to their ambitions in this competition.

Report by Bill Wallis

Warwickshire League 1
Old Laurentians 2nd XV 38 – Newbold 2nd XV 05

In a somewhat bizarre match at Fenley Field, OL’s dominated a game that was abandoned at half-time. Having built up a 38-0 lead, the game was ended when the visitors declared they only had 11 fit players left and didn’t want to continue. 

The rout began when prop Paul Amor showed a great turn of speed and burst over under the posts from fully 25 metres with the Newbold defence apparently not wanting to risk getting in the way, Jamie Brightwell adding the conversion. 

From a scrum on the 25, skipper Ricky Reed noticed a defensive mismatch and burst through the blind side to go over in the corner. Some great passing and offloading then led to winger Matt Coleman having a relatively free run to the line with Brightwell again converting to build up a 19-0 lead. 

OLs seemed to be able to run at will and it was no surprise when Brightwell added two further tries with runs from deep without any Newbold defenders getting close to putting in a tackle. The scorer adding conversions to both to increase the margin to 33-0. 

Another great period of play with forwards and backs trying to out-do each other in demonstrating their running and passing skills created another gap for Scott Whyment to again race over in the corner for the final score of the half. 

Oddly, it was Newbold who then put in a period of sustained pressure close to the home side’s try line but some great defensive work kept the scoresheet clean as the half-time whistle blew. 

The definitive final result will obviously need to be determined by the league although their website is currently showing a 38-0 result with OLs moving to the top of the table.

Report by Ray Todd