Sat 18 Nov 2023, 14:30
Peterborough entertained Olney this past Saturday at Fortress Fengate in front of a large home crowd and came away with a win by a scoreline of 22-10.
The home side started well and had Olney under pressure for a long period of time. The first try of the day went to Borough Captain George Offer who finished off a fine backs move following a scrum 20 metres out. Olney to their credit began to have some success of their own with moving the ball through their quick backs which would be their best form of attack all day. It was from one of these attacks that they managed to score and bring the scores level at 5 all. The rest of the half saw both sides probing each others defence. Then right on half time veteran number 8 Andrew Dewdney forced his way over from close range, Byron Van Uden added the conversion to give Borough a 12-5 halftime lead.
Olney began the second half full of intent and were beginning to have success shifting the ball from one side of the pitch to the other, after one such attack Olney managed to score in the corner, with the conversion missed Borough now had a slender 12-10 lead. Borough then managed to get on top of Olney and scored 10 unanswered points. First Van Uden kicked a penalty which was then followed by a try from 50 metres out when after gaining a turn over Borough's live wire scrum half Alec Barradell made a break, he drew in the last two defenders and offloaded to winger Lawrence Teague who had a simple run in to score and Van Uden added the conversion. Olney then spent the next 10 minutes camped on the Borough tryline but some resolute defence from the home side kept Olney scoreless. With a penalty awarded to Borough Van Uden kicked the ball out to end the game and give Borough a much needed victory by 22-10.
Director of Rugby Shane Manning's comment's " it wasn't the prettiest game to watch but the lads showed a lot of heart to grind out a win. I thought Zac McClure, Rob Moulds and Ryan Morris were superb in defence and Alec Barradell continues to impress. We have well earned week off now before we make the trip over to Wellingborough for our last game in the first round."
