Oundle were a strong side, with tackling and rucking capabilities equal to ours, so every metre made on the pitch was hard fought. During the ebb and flow of the game there were moments where we were on the front foot and winning the breakdowns, and then the coin would flip and Oundle would be on the up. But no heads went down and communication from the team was brilliant. The score was very close, then Oundle managed to get in two tries in quick succession, one a well-managed team try, the other a bit of a lucky break, but we came back to take two of our own and finish up winning 6-4.

The Oundle ref did a really good job of managing the very fast-paced and physical nature of the game, and there are definitely a couple of things for us to work on that perhaps we haven’t really focused on before: what you can do once the ref calls a maul – we gave away a penalty by going to ground after maul had been called and the ball becoming unplayable, when a scrum is given so we are ready and don’t back off, and we can also tighten up on how we bind on at the ruck. All great learning opportunities!

It was great to see the players being so positive and supportive of each other on the pitch, with instructions and encouragement being shouted across to each other. We did, on a few occasions, take the ball straight back into contact rather than pass it out to the wings where teammates were calling they had an overlap, but overall the boys played some intelligent rugby. It was interesting that, against an equally strong team, the majority of our tries were from the ball being passed out to the wing, so something to think about for future similar fixtures.