1st XV v Witham Hall Drew 15-15

For their last match of the season the 1st XV travelled to Oakham School to play against Witham Hall in a 'curtain raiser' for the Oakham vs Uppingham 1st XV match.

We started the game in fine fashion, the forwards ripping into the opposition at the breakdown and the backs carving holes in their defence; within four minutes we were 5 - 0 up thanks to a fantastic 'whisky-soda' move which saw left wing JB scoot over in the corner.
We continued to dominate in the tight but slowly Witham began to gain the upper hand in the backs where they possessed superior pace. Some superb driving play from the XV however tied in the Witham forwards (and increasingly many of their backs) and once again we crossed the whitewash (this time courtesy of a well worked double dummy; right wing GM touching down).

10 - 0 up at half time was, however, no where near enough as Witham came out in the second half determined to play a very wide game which would make the most of their pace. It clearly worked as they outflanked us in the right hand corner on no less than 3 occasions and with only 8 minutes left on the clock we found ourselves trailing by 15 points to 10.

Earlier in the season the team would have simply given up but this was not the case on Saturday. Spurred on by captain TB the team threw themselves at the opposition. Wave after wave on attacks pounded into the Witham defence (which I must report was excellent) but after a period of sustained forward pressure we moved the ball quickly to the left and JC squeezed over to bring the scores level at 15 a piece.

In the end a draw was probably a fair result and the final whistle saw a mixture of relief, disappointment and much emotion.

This has been a quite fantastic season and the team has developed enormously over the last few months. Whilst the results bear witness to this (we have not lost since playing Winchester House at Rugby school on the 20th September) they do not show what a great team this XV have become. They have developed trust in the players around them, played for each other in an unselfish fashion, have supported each other when times have been tough and have worked incredibly hard to develop their personal and team skills. They have been a pleasure to coach and I hope that they will all keep me informed of their progress on the Rugby pitch in the future.