Huntingdon & District Rugby

After a frustrating week with injuries and unavailability a much changed Stags squad made the trip up to Rutland to play Oakham.

Both sides exchange early penalties, but it was Stags who scored the first try when Connor Withers weaved through several defenders to score under the posts. He was successful with the conversion, then further extended the lead with a second penalty.

Mid way through the half Oakham reduced Stags lead with a converted try. With ten minutes remaining in the half Stags were down to 14 men when Nick Saunders went to the bin for a neck roll, and soon after Will Gould went to the bin as well.

Despite being two forwards down, Stags pushed hard into Oakham territory where they were awarded a penalty. A quick tap and go from captain Jack Skidmore had the defence on the ropes and he fed to Simon Rose who crashed over. The conversion was missed but Stags took a 18-10 lead into the break.

Oakham started the second half he brighter of the two teams, scoring two further tries either side of Stags penalty. Stags continued to press deep into Oakham territory where Skidmore fed hooker Seth Muggeridge a well timed pass for him to smash his way over. Withers kicked the extras and stags were back in front by six.

A fourth Oakham try reduced Stags lead to one again. When Gould scored in the corner, Stags pushed that lead back to six with less than ten minutes to go. With five minutes remaining Stags had a chance to seal the win but a long range penalty sailed wide.

The final play of the game saw Oakham break out from their own half and score in the corner. Their kicker held his nerve to kick the winning goal on the stroke of full time. 34-33 final score.

Coach Leader was bitterly disappointed with the result, saying “I am bitterly disappointed with the result.

“We have had a hell of week trying to get a team together and managed to scrape together 16 players today. Add to that only 14 were here for the warm up, and no physio the small percentages were against us today.

“The penalty count must’ve been ten to one, and we had three yellow cards which certainly didn’t help our cause.

“It all sounds like a lot of excuses, but it was a case of could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, but didn’t – we had chances to win this today and didn’t take it so that is a shame.

“When the dust settles with all that was against us we have picked up two losing bonus points so we take that and move on.

Captain Skidmore praised his teams efforts saying “those that we did have today played pretty well; there was a lot of the heart shown under the circumstances.

“Seth put in a good shift, I thought he looked really strong, he must have been drinking up his Guinness lately.

“But that man of the match goes to Jed Adkins for his excellent carries and the fact he smells so good” concluded Skidmore

Stags host Rushden at the Racecourse next weekend where they will look to get back to winning ways. All support, and player availability, certainly welcome.