A Prince among men as Ollie stars on his Matlock RFC debut in crushing win

Matlock RFC produced a convincing display to see off Market Rasen 53-5 at Cromford Meadows on Saturday.
By Mark Duffy
Published 14th Feb 2022, 18:28 BST
Updated 14th Feb 2022, 18:28 BST
Ollie Prince is pictured on the way to his hat-trick try. Photo by Colin Baker.Ollie Prince is pictured on the way to his hat-trick try. Photo by Colin Baker.
Ollie Prince is pictured on the way to his hat-trick try. Photo by Colin Baker.

Market Rasen arrived looking to avenge the earlier home defeat but they could only assemble a 17-man squad, Matlock’s squad for this game seeing four changes from their previous outing.

Matlock began well and scored seven minutes in when first team debutant Ollie Prince raced up the wing, chipped the full-back, regathered the ball and touched down for a great opening, but unconverted.

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Matlock registered again five minutes later when Simon Wright reached through a ruck to touchdown after Rasen had won a scrum, the visitors querying the award but with the ruck over the try line where there is no offside, the call was correct.

Rasen were rocked again within two minutes when their prop made an error giving possession to James Marsden who passed to Luke Howard in space to race 40 metres for a fine finish in the corner, the conversion narrowly wide for 17-0, before Packard scored the next after good work by brothers Simon and Tom Wright, James Fairclough adding the extras and soon afterwards adding a penalty for a 27-0 half-time lead.

On 57 minutes, Matlock added to their tally when Packard executed a classy cross field kick which Prince gathered before racing down the wing to score his second try which was superbly converted by Fairclough from out wide for 34-0.

Rasen reduced the arrears with a try in the corner but moments later Matlock scored another excellent team try as Prince again rounded the Rasen defence to touchdown for his hat-trick try. Again Fairclough added the extras for 41-5.

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Rasen were now struggling to hold up in defence and having lost three players to injury during the match they were now reduced to 14 men, Matlock taking advantage with two more tries from Tom Cruttenden and then Howard with Fairclough converting the first of them.

This was an exciting performance from a squad containing three 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old.

This weekend Matlock will play host to Southwell, kick-off 2.15pm​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Related topics:MatlockPrinceMarket Rasen