The last league match of the season between two sides with nothing to play for but pride failed to produce anything inspiring on a day when the weather conditions should have encouraged some flowing rugby.
Brentwood were awarded a penalty on the OMT ten metre line within the first two minutes. Rather than trust to winning their own lineout ball by punting the penalty into the corner, the alternative of taking an ambitious kick for goal left them pointless.
The scoring was opened soon afterwards. OMT moved the ball to their left and their winger took off only to be stopped by a fine tackle by Church which prevented a try.
The referee however pulled them back and awarded a penalty to the home side which was easily kicked.
Although the Brentood pack generally had the better in the set scrums and managed to hold more territory neither side were able to control the ball enough to open the play and to put any threat on the try line.
Unforced errors and indiscipline led to the referee's whistle being blown regularly and resulted in a stop-start game.
Even when Bywater's chip had put pressure on the full back to clear to touch on the one occasion that they came anywhere near the line, Brentwood were unable to take advantage of their own lineout ball.
Brentwood gifted OMT the chance to increase their lead when, after being awarded a penalty which would have given them the opportunity to clear their own '22', abuse led to the referee reversing the kick into OMT's favour so it was 6-0 to the home side at half time.
The second half failed to produce anything more spectacular other than a couple of breaks by McConnell and Stephens which took Brentwood close.
At the other end of the pitch Brentwood's backs were able to cope with OMT's three-quarters, although on one occasion they had to rely on their highly committed full back Coombes to make considerable ground and put in the decisive tackle when the first real possibility of a score seemed to be on.
Williams and Killington coped well with less than perfect lineout balls only to be frustrated by the ineffective follow up and the all too often loss of the ball, often due to infringements.
Inevitably it took a penalty kick by each flyhalf to complete the scoring.
Although it did lay the ghost on the 'lucky grey shirts' this game will hardly rank as one to remember by Brentwood's Terry Lee who made his last full appearance in their front row after 22 seasons.
Brentwood: Coombes, Church, McConnell, White, Harding, Stephens, Bywater, Kirby, Brook, Lee (Goodin 70), Killington. Williams, Metcalfe , Bell and Shaw.
Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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