Shelford 2’s 41 Old Colfeians 2’s 10 

Having had a reshuffled side during the week due to some availability issues and losing a few to the 1’s we didn’t need a couple of last minute call offs especially in the backs.

However, that is what we got and had to move Dave Archibald from flank to outside centre and Alex Greenberg and George Andrews started. Once all cars had arrived we did not have much time to warm up or get used to the changes in personnel but that didn’t matter in the end. Gareth Young’s kicking for territory was very effective in the first half and helped us keep pressure on Old Colf’s.

We kicked an early penalty to take the lead only to allow the opposition to draw level almost immediately. By keeping the pressure on however, meant that most of the game was played in their half and first half tries came from Rory Finlayson and Richie Cottam turning round at half time 15 – 3 up. The second half was much of the same. We never really got the game plan going but never really needed to, mainly because we were more effective either kicking for position or running from anywhere. Support was good with either offloads out of the tackle or just through the hands. Duncan Boltt’s first try, which he started with a line break, must have gone through about eight sets of hands before he was passed the ball back to run in under the posts. Andy Childerley had a perfectly good try disallowed before Duncan again went over in the corner. From a ruck just inside the opposition half Andy Wallace picked up and ran blind where defence was non existence drew the full back and passed inside for Richie Cottam to get his second.

After constant pressure on the opposition line and with the defence struggling Richie Cottam found acres of space to get his third, and in the dying moments a loose pass in the midfield allowed their fly half to intercept and score a consolation try for Old Colfeians. Overall, a good and pleasing result but deep down I know we can do better and ultimately work better as a team. We are capable of scoring tries from anywhere and have showed that from our matches so far but we need to become more ruthless and get a pattern of play going that allows these scoring opportunities to present themselves to us rather than us finding them.