Old Blues vs Old Cranleighans

November 14th was notable for two things. Firstly, England played Argentina at Twickenham, and secondly, the South East of England was battered by rainstorms for three straight days. Both of these helped the Blues to a great result at OC, since it was clear that a significant number of the OC 1st XV were at Twickenham and the team that we played was considerably weakened. In addition, it was clear that the weather would ensure that it would be a long day indeed for whichever team dropped their heads first. And as we hoped, a strong first 15 minutes from the Blues pack put OCs on the back foot, a situation that would remain for the rest of the game. The Old Blues dominated both scrum and lineout and kept things tight, while the backs pounced on OC mistakes to keep the scoreboard ticking over. Tries from Mitty, David D'Netto and returning No. 8 Simon Bourke saw us through to 25-0 at half time, and a focus on simplifying things in the second half saw us pull away to 54-0 before the ref called time in hte driving rain. Some strong performances, notably from John White and Jhan Burger, but the HdM tankard (absent) went to Simon Bourke, who linked play brilliantly and looked as though he had never been away -despite not having played a full game for the Blues since April.