This week’s guest reporter: Herbie Versmells

This week we welcomed Broadstreet to Doff’s. A new one for us as we have never played them before at 1st team level with them moving into this league for the start of the season. They would be a bit of an unknown quantity but having seen some of their results so far this year they would not have to be underestimated. In the news recently we heard that a local amputee football team had been knocked out of a major competition at the quarter final stage. One was hoping there may have been a second leg.

From the kick off the game started at a frantic pace and it was clear that the visitors wanted to play a similar style of running rugby to Olney. Their side consisted of considerable youth, fast backs, some lean and mobile forwards, a man called washing machine, and a very young, friendly winger called Jack who had brought his Mum along to take him home early so he could do his paper round. Olney Unfortunately lost Eliot Simpson to injury early on which meant a bit of reshuffling in the backs. With both sides cancelling each other out in midfield it took an interception by the Broadstreet full-back to open the scoring when he raced down the left wing. A fine conversion by young Jack added the extras. Olney were reduced to 14 men for a penalty infringement but held out well to keep the score the same at the half time interval. Steve says there’s a little too much celebrating for no apparent reason. A knock on by the opposition does not require ecstatic scenes of jubilation!
The game continued in much the same way in the second half with plenty of action for little reward. Olney attacked well and were close to the line on a few occasions. Good defence held them at bay and a long clearance kick from a turnover pushed Olney back to their own 22 and then a goal line drop-out. Broadstreet capitalised on this and broke through a couple of tackles to score close to the posts. Jack again with the conversion. Olney were soon on the offensive though and some hard drives by the pack gave Mac Kitchener the space he needed to touch down wide on the left. Charlie Hicks with a well taken conversion. Olney then brought on Hector Stanbridge (sporting a fancy new haircut) to add some considerable bulk to the front row. He made his presence felt by holding 4 Broadstreet forwards at bay at a ruck to set up more quick ball and eventually the forwards were able to produce a short pass to Ewan Fuller who crashed over for the score. A Hicks conversion and the scores were level. As the gloom set in for the evening Broadstreet forged ahead again from a penalty kick but Olney had other ideas and an attacking move followed by more good shunts by the forwards released Henry Warren on the left who took his chance to score in the corner. 19-17 to the home side. Unfortunately this was not the last score of the match as Broadstreet were awarded a lineout close enough for a catch and drive which they duly scored from to take the score to 22-19 in their favour. With full-time looming this was the last real action and ultimately the victory to Broadstreet.

Overall, a decent game of rugby played in the right spirit and well refereed and yet again it shows there are no easy games in this league but plenty of things for the boys to work on in training. Well done Jack for playing with a smile on his face and taking any banter thrown at him from the East Stand. As ever this reporter will state that most of this is possibly not entirely factual, even the news and tales of local celebrities, so please take it as such.

Apparently Mrs Harris had to visit the doctor earlier in the week. When asked what the problem was she explained she was experiencing some embarrassing discharge. Without hesitating the doctor had her on the bench, naked from the waist down with her feet in the stirrups and gave her a thorough examination. It was only after 10 minutes and he had found no obvious problem that she managed to explain that the discharge was coming from an abscess on the side of her neck!