Oxford Colts 7 v Maidenhead Colts 12
Sunday 25th September 2005

Maidenhead Colts, a new amalgam of the former colts XV which finished runners-up in the BBO League last season, and the U17 XV which won the league, unveiled a new strategy as they opened their league challenge for the new season - lull the opposition into a false sense of security.

Maids played extremely poorly, with a lack of momentum, alacrity, and devil in the play. The previous week they had heavily defeated a massive London Welsh team drawn from Wales exile players from across the country. At Oxford, they never remotely approached that form and the coaches had to settle for praising the fact that they never stopped trying to rescue the game.

The fact was that they trailed by 5-7 in the last seconds of play. It was no use pointing out that they had dominated the whole second half for possession and territory or that they had missed some golden chances to score tries. It was no excuse that Chris Adam had left the field injured, leaving Maids with no regular scrum-half, because Sam Stefan stepped up from full-back and played marvellously. Oxford were leading with a breakaway converted try, which cancelled out Ryan Christian's try for Maids in the first half when they moved gloriously down the right and long passing across the midfield by Dayne Ferrar set Christian free. Then, Maids took their foot off the gas again.

The last play of the match saw the team rouse itself. Karl Kempton took a line-out ball, a steaming and well-organised drive rocked Oxford back and Kempton arrived to score. Dave Hodgson, the best Maids player, kicked the goal and the match was over.