For many of us, this was our first trip to the impressive OAs ground in St. Albans.

Fresh off our hard fought win the previous week, the boys were in high spirits and the sun was shining.

OAs would be a mix of their 1s and 2s so we knew they were would a decent side and they started off brightly efficiently throwing the ball around their backs and stretching us left and right.

OGs opened the scoring with a nice take from a lineout near OAs' line from our no.6 Harry who crashed over. However OAs fought back with an immediate response taking advantage of some soft tackling from us to score in the left hand corner.

A typical penetrative run by Oran saw him crash over again after another elusive run for a fine try.

Another try and conversion from OAs put us behind in the game with the end of the first half by just 2 points.

The boys rallied together with our 13 Oran and 14 Tayte making penetrating runs with every carry. Tayte with the back 3, dealing very well with OAs astute tactical kicking in the sun. Our forwards made lots of gains through the middle, which showed our ability with the ball in hand driving through the middle which nicely complemented our backs play, showing both sides of our expanding game.

We did score with a surging run through the middle from our no.8 Isaac, resulting in quick ball from the ruck, to our no. 7 Ethan popping the ball outside to our no.12 Finlay to score in the right hand side corner.

Second half saw the same format of play with a try disallowed after masses of pressure by OGs resulting in a ball spilt in the OAs try area and a disallowed try by Oscar. The boys diligently carried on despite the ref's decision on the no-try.

OAs scored with a forwards try despite our boys valiant efforts to stop the grounding.

OGs were not to be denied and a surging run down the right wing by Tayte, then cutting inside 3 players saw him touch down under the posts which was duly converted by Oscar. Game on!

With the clock counting down to time, we were still 2 points down, Isaac made a dashing run down the left wing and was within 5m but OAs expertly shut him out and that was time.

This was an entertaining game and whilst our ruck improved this game, we still have plenty to work on in training next week.