IT WAS a successful start to the Midlands 2 East (South) season for Old Laurentians as they came away from their first visit to Olney with a hard fought 12-20 victory on Saturday, reports Bill Wallis.
It took 40 minutes for the visitors get into their stride before a convincing second half performance ultimately produced a comfortable victory.
The home side were quickest out of the blocks and OL’s needed to display their defensive qualities to keep them at bay during the first quarter of the game before they took the lead with a Jon Bean penalty after 20 minutes.
It came against the run of play when Olney scored just three minutes from half time, building on a lineout on OLs 22 to finally breach the visitors’ defence, going over in the corner for an unconverted try to take a 5-3 lead into the break.
OLs made some positional changes which brought skipper Ben Wiles up from full back to inside centre and the move paid off handsomely after just two minutes of the second half when Wiles took quick lineout possession to slice through from 25 metres for a fine try, Bean’s conversion restoring OLs’ lead to 10-5.
The visitors took control of the game for the second half and an excellent display of tactical kicking by fly half Bean kept Olney pinned back deep in their own half.
The next score came ten minutes after the break when Wiles put in a finely judged grubber kick and followed it up to touch down for a 15-5 lead.
A comfortable win looked to be on the cards for OLs but that changed when Olney’s outside centre intercepted a pass deep in his own 22 and ran 80 metres for a try, the conversion narrowing OLs’ lead to a slender 15-12 with 15 minutes left to play.
Then another raking kick by Bean left Olney’s defence in trouble, a kick was charged down and centre Troy Owen chased the bouncing ball through to claim the touchdown and restore OLs advantage to 20-12.
OLs will be on familiar territory at Fenley Field for the first time this Saturday when Oundle are the visitors for a league game.
