Old Wheatleyans RFC vs Pinley RFC

The first cold Saturday afternoon of the season so far saw The Wheats host Pinley at Stade Wheats.

Fresh from their dominant win away against Southam the week before, The Wheats were in confident mood but Pinley arrived off the back of a good result against Old Leam’s and so the stage was set for a tough encounter.

With only a couple of changes to the squad that faced Southam, The Wheats lined up with Dom, Liam and Rossco in the front row, Wrighty and BJ in the second row and Fitty, Loachy and Weaves in the back row.
Lowey and Cassell continued at half-back, a new centre partnership of Nolan and Rhys and the back 3 of Dru, Ross and Chip remained unchanged.
Flappy made his 1st team season bow on the bench alongside Brooksy and Rob T.

From the very first minute it became apparent that Pinley’s approach was to play a very physical game in an attempt to intimidate the young Wheats side.

It didn’t work.

Dominant in the scrum, impressive in the loose and attacking with pace and power from all areas of the pitch, The Wheats picked up where they left off against Southam and ran in 4 first half tries.

Dru outpaced winger and full back to cross the line following a good Cassell blind-side break and then a BARNSTORMING break from Liam set up Wrighty to power over the line from 10 yards. The latter converted by Cassell gave the home side a 12-0 lead in as many minutes.

Further tries followed for Nolan and Rhys, both converted by Cassell and the Wheats were 26-0 up at half-time.

Inevitably Pinley upped their game in the second half, still maintaining their physical approach which spilled over on several occasions resulting in 3 Wheats players leaving the field with nasty blood injuries.
The visitors breached Wheats defence after 5 minutes but the Wheats hit straight back with Fitty going over from 40 metres for a fine solo effort and Cassell adding the extras.

With the injuries disjointing the Wheats play in the second half, they never really got going and attained the dominance they had in the opening 40 minutes. With the bonus point already in the bag, this was now time to stand up and dog out the victory.

Two further Pinley tries followed when Cassell was in the bin (deemed for a deliberate knock on) to make the score 33-19 to the Wheats going into injury time. Unfortunately, a poorly-positioned official awarded Pinley a try that never was with the last play of the game and the conversion saw Pinley finish with 2 bonus points.

But the day was about the Wheats who stood up to provocation, played some outstanding rugby and recorded back-to-back 5 point wins with a superb 33-26 victory.

Well done you Wheats boys!