Sat 21 Mar 2026
Peterborough RUFC 1st Team made the trip to 2nd placed Northampton Old Scouts on Saturday and lost by 49-33 thanks to a sloppy first half. Despite the loss Borough did manage a 4 try bonus point which keeps them in fifth place, 1 point ahead of a chasing Stamford. Returning players Luke Swindells, Byron Van Uden and Rob Jacobs made their first starts after unavailability and injury to give a boost to the Fengate side as they enter the business end of the season.
The visitors kicked off in perfect conditions and despite making some early inroads found themselves concede a simple try after a drop ball was leapt on by the home side. Borough soon responded after Will Manning made a typical rampaging run offloading to a supporting Harry Anderson to score, Van Uden converting. Old Scouts backs however were causing Borough all sorts of problems and quickly responded with 2 more scores to push the score out to 21-7. With Scouts giving the ball so much air Jacobs seized an opportunity for a intercept and sprinted 90 metres clear to score a converted try. Old Scouts then dominated the rest of the half and scored twice more to push the half time score out to 35-14 leaving Borough with a mountain to climb.
The second half began as the first finished with Scouts scoring 2 tries to push the score out to 49-14. With the chance the score could really get away from them Borough began to throw themselves at their opposition. With a bonus point for scoring four tries still to play for Borough dominated the rest of the half. Firstly Boroughs scrum got to work and pushed their opponents back to their own tryline allowing number 8 Will Bell the easiest of scores. Borough were now in control and after great interplay between backs and forwards Bell had his second try when he went over with a couple of defenders hanging off him. With the four try bonus point secured Borough were now playing with confidence and would score one more try with Alfie Lewis finishing off a well executed lineout move. With the final whistle Borough were left wondering what could of been if they could of found the form they displayed in the last 30 minutes of the game for the full 80.
Director of Shane Manning's comments " we showed Scouts way to much respect at the start of the game and they made us pay. Its been the story of our season really, allowing some of the better sides get away from us on the scoreboard before when take control and are left chasing. The race for play off places though is still in our hands, if we win our next 2 games we will be there but also if Stamford slip up we will be there. It's not as simple as it sounds as next up in our last home game of the season we have Oadby Wygges who I'm sure would love to spoil things for us. If we can start the game how we finished against Scouts we will be hard to beat."
