Strong Contest with Oadby is a great start for 2024

The Old Scouts kicked off the new year in a tough encounter with Oadby Wyggs.

The away game at the beginning of the season was one to forget for Oadby, with Scouts winning 62-3 but the team were not expecting the same and it was not an easy win this time.
Oadby’s pack are a big, well-structured force and the key to the win was dealing with that first. The scouts pack had a couple of different faces in it, with George Cresser returning from University and Bobby Bland making a start in a few games. The result was excellent set piece and a strong scrum to combat any danger from Oadby.

Just in case Scouts hadn’t taken them seriously, they certainly did after 5 minutes because the visitors hit some heavy lines and scored a nice try to go 7 points up. You could see the spectators take a big breath with the thought of a having a difficult afternoon, but the re-start and re-focus for Scouts began and very quickly Bland finished a team try at 12 minutes.
It wasn’t as strong a reply as hoped for and with Oadby defending well, The Scouts only managed a half time lead of 19-10. A try a piece from Dolman and Sharpe, plus 2 conversions from Will Brenan.

The second 40 minutes were all about getting back to pre Christmas form as the squad have some tough games ahead.

The boys put in a good shift against a resilient Oadby team, and lots of turkey and many mince pies were burnt off to score a further 26 points and only concede 7.
Tries came from the hardest working mince pie burners Bobby Bland, Cam Sharpe, Sonny Rodella and Luke Reeves. Tom Holliday received a yellow card because he wasn’t happy someone tried to steal his mince pie with their boot.

Will Brenan ended the game with a beautiful conversion and a 71% kicking average. One less mince pie might have meant he was at the pre Christmas +80% average.

On to Olney away next week where the squad will be looking to dominate the tricky opponents.

Man of the Match = Bobby Bland