Old Otliensians are stung by Thornensians as they suffer biggest defeat of the season

OLD Otliensians drew a blank as they slipped to their heaviest defeat of the season on Saturday.

They might have realised it wasn't going to be their day when scrum half Ieuan Cranswick injured a shoulder after featuring in a bright early move involving No 8 Rob Arbuckle and winger Declan Jackson.

An Otliensians shot at goal from a penalty fell short and second row Connor Bateman went close after a good break.

At this stage, both sides looked dangerous with ball in hand, but the visitors were falling off tackles and the home side capitalised in the 15th minute to score the first try.

Cranswick's injury forced him to leave the field and it resulted in Dom Oddy taking over at scrum half with Nathan Rogers moving to centre.

Thorne were growing in confidence and two tries in quick succession gave them a comfortable lead.

Poor tackling was giving Thornensians far too much room on the ball and the bonus-point try arrived on the half-hour mark.

Oliver Eaves was sin-binned for a tackle offence while scrum after scrum had to be reset as play became very scrappy.

The visitors had much to consider at the interval, not least the 20-0 scoreline, but a rapid turn-round scarcely gave the teams breathing space let alone tactical time.

From the kick-off, the visitors put themselves under pressure by failing to secure the ball and the resulting scrum provided Thornensians with the opportunity to register their fifth try. Nathan Rogers had a good run as Otliensians stirred themselves but the backs were not seeing enough ball to be able to mount their customary fast attacks.

Thorne were playing faster, stronger, and more committed rugby and gave the scoreboard official more work after with their sixth try.

Thornensians were incurring the referee’s displeasure and penalty after penalty allowed Otliensians to slow the game down and give themselves at least some chance of having the ball.

Thornensians rounded off the scoring when one of their centres completed a good move with the touchdown. Amazingly they missed all seven of their conversion attempts

To compound Otliensians' misery, Rogers had to limp off and second row Connor Bateman suffered a back injury which led to the referee calling a halt after 77 minutes.