Otliensians 30

Wath upon Dearne 10

OTLIENSIANS won this Yorkshire League Three encounter more convincingly than the score suggests crossing for five tries with one against on a day when the kicks for the most part would just not go over.

The home side opened like a train with some fine driving by the whole pack and within two minutes had opened the scoring with a pushover try, Dave Roberts getting the touchdown. This followed a fine chip over the defence by stand-off Ian Chaplin to set up the position.

A good break by Andy Hayward down the right touchline almost led to another score while his back row colleagues Dave Smith and Dave Roberts were doing some fine driving close in to put the Wath defence under pressure. They were ably backed up by the rest of the pack.

Wath clawed three points back with a penalty for off-side after coming a little more into the game.

Otliensians however were still exerting pressure and on the half hour excellent forward driving took play to five metres from the Wath line and scrum-half Peter Gillson made no mistake with an elusive and driving run to go over for a deserved second try for Otliensians.

Regrettably, and happily briefly, Otliensians took their foot off the pedal and virtually from the re-start Wath took play down the centre of the field for their second row Lines to drive over under the posts for five points.

The easy conversion brought the scores level and thus they remained until the break although Otliensians were superior in almost all phases with most of the play concentrated in the Wath half, the home side only being pushed back by some good defensive touch kicking.

Within seven minutes of the re-start Otliensians had put their mark on the game with two fine tries. The first followed some weighty driving and was finished off by Matt Tenniswood's touchdown and conversion. The second was a great team effort with some good forward possession followed by the ball being swept quickly down the back line with powerful running Peter Gillson, now switched to full-back, going over close to the corner.

Wath attempted to respond but were snuffed out by some strong tackling, particularly by Tony Collins and Andy Hayward.

Otliensians were producing some good passing rugby but it was a sharp piece of individual play by Hayward that led to their fifth try when a Wath drop out was charged down by the former wing forward and switched to the backs who quickly collected the loose ball to go over from 20 metres out.

This put the game out of reach for Wath but they did not buckle and it was left to Chaplin, taking over the kicking duties, to convert a final penalty for Otliensians a few minutes before the close.

This was a fine overall team performance by Otliensians with good work by every player, however, in addition to those mentioned Richard Paley tackled unceasingly close in in addition to his accurate line-out throwing which combined well with good jumping and handling by Brett Tenniswood and Dave Roberts.

Otliensians' overall power play was the defining difference between the sides and gave them some fine turnovers and plenty of ground gained pressurising the visitors into mistakes.

l On Saturday Otliensians visit Hemsworth in a brought forward league fixture. Kick-off at Lowfield Road is at 2.15 pm. Supporters are welcome.