Old Patesians vs Oxford Harlequins

Old Patesians – 29
Oxford Harlequins– 14

Referee – Tom Foley

Old Patesians just about held their nerve to win a scrappy encounter with Oxford Harlequins in the National 3 South West. They remains unbeaten and at the top of the points table after five games but this was an unconvincing victory by their own high standards. Pats won the toss and chose to play up the Everest Road slope and into the teeth of a fierce gusting wind.

All went well for a while, with Pats securing quality possession from the set pieces and their disciplined forwards employing, with great effect, the pick and drive, making the hard yards. No 8 James Pettigrew was back to his best with surging runs from the base of the scrum. His tendency to become isolated when breaking the gain line seems to be a thing of the past with his fellow back row forwards in Giles Potter and Jake Kitson always in close support.

Pats won a penalty line-out in the top right corner and form a perfectly executed catch and drive, hooker Ross Bisett claimed the try when the juggernaught maul crashed over the line. Quins are a good side, with an excellent set of three-quarters at their disposal, and once the began to understand the vagaries of playing down the slope they exerted considerable pressure on the Pats defence for their first true test of the season.

Their inside centre Dominic Maley was a class act, elusive and very quick and could side-step off both feet. On two occasions only Pats line speed from their midfield to close him down denied him tries in the first quarter. Pats player/coach Rob Fidler had to leave the field with an injury and without their line-out maestro the home team began to forfeit crucial possession on their own feed.

Despite losing control in the set pieces Pats won enough ball in the open to deny Quins the opportunity to exploit the twin advantages of the slope and wind, eventually their cause was helped when the visitors wing was sin-binned for an obstruction. Pats took advantage of the extra man outside and replacement forward Brett Harvey scored from another catch and drive penalty line-out and Pats led 10 to nil at the break.

Quins made a mess of the restart and Pats centre Barney Pascall collected at pace and waltzed through a hole in the defence for a super try converted by skipper Adam Seager.

Quins were in no mood to be acquiescent about this reversal in their fortunes and set about driving the Pats up the incline and deep into their own half. Pats broke free from the Quins temporary strangle hold and scrum-half Darren Moore hoofed a thoughtful box kick over the heads of the advancing defence. Right wing Henry Bird following up read the bounce well and went over in the corner for his teams forth try, earning the important bonus point.

Pats were anxious to wrap up the game and Pascall again found a hole in the midfield before offloading to Pettigrew who deserved his try between the posts. Seager converted, but the Pats confidence was disturbed when prop James King was yellow carded for being offside. Without their front row cornerstone, the Pats scrum was straightaway under enormous pressure and Quins picked up two soft tries. The scorers were Maley and replacement Tim Knapp, both converted by replacement scrum-half Ken Hurst-Newell.

Pats survived a torrid final ten minutes but there were no further scores and they held out for the win to maintain their position at the to of the table.

By Bob Ellis.