Captain Courageous leads City to Victory.......

High Wycombe 20 Milton Keynes 41

Milton Keynes came away with a surprise victory at High Wycombe on Saturday. Travelling with a depleted squad they had braced themselves for a tough encounter against a team having come down a league and were sitting second in the table. The difference in the two sides was the City backs who were able to tear through the home team with ease. Man of the match Phil Powell was the instigator in many of the scores.

The first 10 minutes of the game were evenly matched with both sides testing the opposition defence. The first score went to Milton Keynes when Powell made his intent clear, cutting through the Wycombe defence and releasing Dan Rolfe who powered his way over the Wycombe line.

A further try occurred, off of some good lineout ball and another break by Phil Powell who managed to off load the ball with a touch of Sonny Bill, in the tackle to Mr Dependable Dave Matthews who gave it to Tim Parkinson to go over the line. With the conversion MK were 14 points in the lead.

From the kick off the away team put themselves under pressure in their own 22. A number of handling errors gave Wycombe the impetus and 3 points from a penalty kick.

A further try came from City soon after with Powell breaking able to break High Wycombe tackles and putting 11 points between the two sides.

Following some good line outs by Milton Keynes, Guy Buller dropped the ball down to scrum half Lasbrey who made a break before passing the ball to Dan Rolfe who duly scored his second of the day.

Following another good break by Phil Powell the ball was passed to Dave Matthews who was able to score under the posts. To their surprise Milton Keynes were very much in the driving seat after half an hour.

By half time High Wycombe had decided their best chance of a try was to keep the ball with the forwards. This resulted in a try and conversion just before the half time whistle. The score was 10 -26 at half time.

Wycombe continued with their ploy of running a tight game in the forwards, but on many occasions their handling let them down allowing the away team some respite. They managed to trundle into the City 22, where the boys showed some sterling defence, Matt Styles up to his usual hard hitting antics, making sure their ball carriers knew exactly what they were getting for running at him. After 5 minutes of strong tackling the away team managed to win a turnover on their own try line.

The next score came from Milton Keynes. More good lineout work gave the backs time and space to threaten the Wycombe line. And Ollie Fountain went over for the next try after another well executed training ground move from the backs.

With a comfortable lead of 10 - 33 City had a lapse of concentration and allowed the Wycombe full back to run half the length of the field before passing the ball to their winger to score in the corner. Wycombe scored a further try from a 5 metre scrum giving the home side 20 points. City were beginning to feel the pressure with 20 minutes to go, and it took a penalty kick from Captain Courageous Powell to settle the nerves.

The last 10 minutes City decided to play for territory and pinned Wycombe into their half. With their superior pack fitness they started to turn the screw and this resulted in a number of cheap shots from the away team. One of which saw centre Rob Matthews take a high tackle to the chin and was out cold before he hit the floor, meaning Wycombe would see out the game with ten men.

The last try came in the final minute following another well executed catch and drive, from the City pack, Dave Brown broke off the back off the maul down the blind side, as the cover came across he slipped the ball back inside to the supporting Rob Lasbrey who spun out of the tackle to go over for the last score of the day. Powell was unable to convert this time making the final score 20 - 41, a surprise to both teams and spectators.

City are now second in the league with just Bletchley above them. Swindon College visit The Valley next Saturday, a team who have yet to win a game and sit bottom of the league. A similar performance from City should mean a high scoring game.