Old Brentwoods 2nd XV hosted Romford & Gidea Park 3rd XV on Saturday 9th September 2017, with kick off at 3PM the squad turned up nice and eager to the club with everyone very keen to get the season started.

OBRFC had a full squad of 20 players and our team was a great mixture of experience and youth, we had the upmost confidence to come away with the win. Kicking off was OBRFC, we quickly dominated the last arriving Romford team. Turning over possession in their half and using great attacking platforms through Johnny Janes, Ed Gooday and Andrew Burgess providing forward momentum around the rucks with the pick and go’s. The Pressure soon turned into points with the forwards crashing over the line just a few meters away from the sticks, Adam Grace stepped up to take the punt but with an unfamiliar tee shanked the ball wide.

Romford then got going and dominated possession from the kick off, keeping the ball and cleverly dominating the breakdown with intelligent counter rucking. We struggled to contain them when they went wide and chipped over the top, even with brave tackles from Barry Davis and Andy Embling they were unable to prevent them scoring two tries down the left wing. With OBRFC kicking off again, and Half time approaching we tried our best to steady the ship and bring back the structured clinical play that had allowed us to score however we were unable to get pods going quick enough to effectively ruck over and a turnover and break occurred which ended with a try to Romford. The Half then ended 5-20.
At Half time it was evident we must implement key structures to our game to bring the consistency in our game. We made four changes at half time, including the father and son combo Stu & James Sullivan, along with Olly Peacock and Niall Hooper, bringing more physicality to the squad in the second half.
Kick off to the second half and Old Brentwood were receiving, we quickly steadied the ship and created a platform to work clever ball and line breaks with Ryan Barker making meters at outside centre with dummy lines coming from the forwards. OBRFC were quickly turning up the pressure on Romford, Johnny crashing over for his second try of the day. Following the restart, the ball was quickly distributed to the back where Liam Tilly the openside flanker stood, intelligently spotting the gap behind and nudging it over into behind the defence with RAPID pace shown by James Sullivan to collect and tap the ball down over the line for a score in the corner.

In the second half Romford resulted to kicking the pressure away, with James Sullivan at Full back we had a steady set of hands to catch and drive the ball back at them with his pace and step. With OBRFC pinned in our own half a switch between Adam Grace and Aaron Knapp allowed a breakaway in the opponents half carrying the ball to the edge of the 22. This set up another solid platform for the forwards to score a great try and bring the score to 25-20.

Romford hadn’t finished with us though using their big pack to dominate the breakdown for a period of the game which allowed them to get on the score sheet once again to take the lead with a covered try 25-27. OBRFC Kicked off knowing we only had 12 minutes left on the clock to come up with something special, we quickly turned over ball on the half way and made our way up the pitch with clever running lines from Josh Turrell. Penalty ‘OFFSIDE from Romford. OBRFC were in the 22 with players wanting to go for the posts, Captain Aaron Knapp deciding to go for the try. A tap and go from Barry O’Connor flinging the ball wide pulling the defence to the other side of the pitch and allowing space for Prop forward Stu Sullivan to step his opposite number and keep pace with the full back to crash over for the try. Ryan Barker stepped up and slotted the conversion for a 32-27 lead.

With only a couple of minutes left to play the OBRFC pack lead my Charlie Raymond Snr slowed the ball down and allowed the clock to reach 80 minutes before the ball was kicked into touch to end the game. Big thank you to the whole squad, who turned up and played, was a team effort for the whole 80 minutes.
Man of the match – Charlie Raymond Snr (Pack Leadership & Birthday Boy) [Pictured]
Dick of the day – Liam Tilly (Kicking offences)