The northern chapter of the OG’s u-14’s went up against a number of schoolfriends in a grudge match against Cheshunt. With their home ground chopped up and apparently deposited on by a stray horse, the match was moved to a ground with one of the worst features encountered by supporting parents in living memory – a lack of bar facilities. We regrouped though, knuckled down and braved temperatures colder than where Coach Smith currently is to cheer on the boys.

The whistle blew, Cheshunt kicked off and the OG’s very generously watched the ball go up, then down, then along the ground. As a horde of chasing Cheshunt’s bore down on them, we knocked it on trying to pick it up. The appropriate encouragement to ‘wake up’ came from the touchline and the boys responded. The Cheshunt attack was repelled and after some even play in the midfield, Ben stole the ball off the ground, to feed Fred. Despite strong tackling by the Cheshunt defence, he offloaded to Kai who then fed Koree who offloaded back to Ben for him too burst through and score.

The game remained fairly well matched through the half with the only additional score falling to the OG’s. A good attack was stopped only for Cheshunt to concede a penalty. Koree attacked from close (with customary shoe and sock combination) but was tackled well, just short of the line. The forwards hit the ruck to secure the ball allowing Sam to pick up at the back and dive round the side to score what was generally thought to be his first OG try.

The half ended at 0-12 with big Jamie leaving the field after a trying ‘face-off’ to one of the Cheshunt runner’s elbows. It was the first claret seen today, but it will not be the last (albeit a different type is more likely).

The second half started strongly for the OG’s. Reece hit a big tackle in the midfield and the ball was turned over. Kai took it on, Ollie recycled quick ball and Ben Underwood dummied the Cheshunt defence to carve through and score his second – 0-19.

The scoreboard was now moving quickly – Ben Lovell took off from the back of a scrum with 25 yards to go to the line. He went down the narrow side catching the Cheshunt defence off guard, blasted through a few tackles and was brought down agonisingly short until he reached forward and as the photo evidence shows, learned from the Welsh yesterday, clearly stretched over the line with downward pressure.

From the kick-off, Kai collected and blitzed through the disorganised Cheshunt defence to return for a score under the posts. Cheshunt regrouped well and played a number of phases in the OG’s half to put pressure on the try line. Despite some dogged defence to keep them to nil points, they finally found a way through to bring the score to 5-33.

Disappointed to have given up a score of any kind, OG’s went back on the offensive. Jack and Koree stripped a ball just inside the Cheshunt half. A series of phases took the ball close to the line and Mark BB looked to have crossed. He was held up short, but illegally and from the resulting 5m penalty, Koree made a trademark play. They could not stop him and the final try of the game was scored. Ben Mitchell made his 5th conversion out of 6 attempts to bring the final score to 5-40.

Another strong performance all round with tackling excellent and good all-round play. Some of the handling errors seen in previous matches were not so apparent today leading to more phases being linked together and better ball retention throughout the match. There was some excellent offloads too in the tackle, including the series that led to the opening try. Well played, boys.