Wheatley fail to stop the "BuckTruck"

After a tough away loss to Bicester, the Wheatley 2nds were looking for a solid home win against Buckingham. Once their captain was located and delivered to the club, spirits were high, not least of them was Jake Durbin who’s opposite number happened to be his employer.

As the sun broke through the clouds the pre-match warm ups quickly identified the two sides alternative training programs, which was not lost on Wheatley’s captain proclaiming “Look at them! They’re doing f**king press ups!”.

From the whistle Wheatley showed their intent, with big hits going in and after some early pressure a strong chase, Jake Durbin was able to steal the ball from under the 15s hands, pop up to Jamie who then deftly fed in Mezz to score in the corner to take a 5-0 lead. After Jake dropped his second kick of of the day, the try was shortly followed by a scrum on half way, giving Durbin to try and exert his dominance against his boss. The scrum led to a break by Josh Hillsdon who, not for the last time of the day, scythed through the defence and popped to Dan Blomfield in the corner for an easy score.

This was clearly the wake up call Buckingham needed and following a series of strong attacks focused through their strong 10, had quickly levelled the points.

Half time saw a change of fly half for Wheatley, with Gareth Johnson replacing Rob George, however Buckingham started the half strong and quickly scored again.

Despite Durbin’s best efforts Buckingham’s forwards were demonstrating their experience, both in the scrums and in the rucks, putting pressure on the Wheatley's scramble defence, which did a sterling job to limit the score forcing Buckingham to squander a number of chances.

After a ferocious passage of play with breaks from both sides, the Wheatley forwards finally secured clean ball from a line out and set a solid maul, allowing Scrum half George Turner to feed the backs, resulting in Josh Hillsdon again breaking through the lines to score under the posts for Wheatley’s third try.

Wheatley had the opportunity for a 4th try and bonus point following a ruthless break from fly half Gareth, holding the defence until 5 metres out, unfortunately the try was not scored for an unknown reason (Ask Blommers about it in the bar next time - JD)

All in all a solid (career limiting) Wheatley performance was not quite enough for the experience of the Buckingham side.

Man of the Match - Josh Hillsdon for his tireless work in defence and attack
Dick of the Day - Dan Blomfield for an 'unknown reason'

Words by Dan 'The Juggler' Blomfield