Dubs 19 - Old Oundelians 9 (27/10/07)
This fixture was much anticipated with both teams near the top of the table and meeting for the first time. Played as a memorial game in honour of Mick Brown and Dave Smith, both teams and spectators lined up to observe a minute's silence before the game.
Virtually from the off, good aggressive play from the Dubs pack saw us threatening the Oundelians line and recycling the ball. The lineout started well with our trademark attacking variations paying dividends as we drove through the defence for yours truly to score from close range, conversion missed, 5-0. Scoring early on is always dangerous as the scoring team relaxes and we proved why as we conceded a number of penalties in our half to allow Oundelians into the scoring zone. An easy penalty brought it back to 5-3.
A great lineout and driving maul saw us go within inches of the line minutes later, but lack of control at the last second turned over possession and Oundelians did well to clear their lines. The referee then took charge of the game and the penalty count soared as we were penalised time after time for infringements on the floor. A final warning was issued and it was clear the next offence would carry a yellow card. Soon after, John got his marching orders for obstruction followed by dissent to take us down to 14.
Having re-joined the fray, John made amends soon by picking up a pass from our half and running to within 20 yards before being caught, but did brilliantly to offload to Posh hitting the ball at pace on the angle, who ran on for the try, conversion missed, 10-3. No sooner had we got John back when Neil got his matching orders for a late tackle / shoulder charge and we were back down to 14. Kieran then retaliated to an incident right in front of the ref with an obvious punch to reduce us to 13. Oundelians pulled back another couple of easy penalties as we tried to hold discipline but still defend against 15 men. The half finished 10-9, with the scoreline a reflection of our indiscipline letting Oundelains back into the game when they hadn't really threatened the line for 40 minutes.
Starting the second half with 13 men, the team instruction was to play safety first for the first 5 minutes until we regained the full 15. This accomplished, we continued to dominate the set play at linout and scrum and began working up the field in phases. Oundelians obliged by infringing and Darren slotted a penalty, 13-9. Continued pressure saw us go close a number of times, but Oundelians defended well to stay in the game and managed to slow down our ball at the breakdown, unfortunately this became increasingly dubious until the ref intervened and Oundelians lost a man to the bin. Ben slotted the resulting penalty, 16 - 9.
Oundelians had a chance to pull back at least 5 points late on when a kick behind saw the winger chasing with no one at home for the Dubs, only a fortunate bounce allowed us time to catch up and push him out on the corner flag. We cleared our lines and started working back up the field, at times 10 yards at a time from lineout to lineout, but with dominance in this area it worked well and off our attacking move Oundelians conceded a penalty which Ben slotted to close the game out 19 - 9.
In my opinion, the team spirit in this game and the will to win were probably the best thus far this season - after 3 yellow cards we could easily have lost control of the game but we played the game required for much of the 80 minutes and overall it was a well-deserved win. The referee did have a profound influence on the game but technically he was a level above what we usually get and we have to learn to adjust quicker to what we are being told on the field, an incident-free second half showed that we did eventually get the message.
Our thanks to the supporters who turned out for the day and were very vocal on the touchline, and for joining us in the bar afterwards to drink a few beers in honour of our lost friends and close out the day in true Dubs fashion - they would have loved it.
Photos of the game are posted in the Picture Galleries.
(by Mark Lucy)
RFU.com 
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