A DISJOINTED Swindon College Old Boys side overcame Thatcham 33-18 in the Berks/Bucks & Oxon Premier, but their guests gave them a serious run for the their money.

Old Boys manager Martin Peaple was surprised by the levels of performance shown by Thatcham, who find themselves stuck in the bottom quarter of the division, and was concerned at how close the game turned out to be.

“They were a really good, well-drilled team,” said Peaple.

“It’s odd that they are languishing down there, but we did make it hard for ourselves.”

Thatcham started the brighter of the two teams, and put the Old Boys on the back foot. But Peaple’s troops resisted the brief spell of pressure and began to enforce themselves on the fixture.

Stuart Knight scored the game’s first try before Kevin Barker and Richard White made it 21-3 at half-time.

“We allowed them to dominate the first 15 or 20 minutes,” admitted Peaple.

“And we did look a little disjointed, which probably comes from those players who have come into the side not having played as a group very much.”

With Ross Saville, Matt McKee and Greig O’Brien absent through injury, the spine of the Old Boys side could have been forgiven for looking a little shaky.

But Mark Williams, filling in at 10, and Carl Mitchell at number eight coped admirably with the burden of responsibility and Peaple believes that this win, more than any other, marks his side out as a front-runner for the league.

“Even with upsets and injuries we’re still winning, and that’s the sign of a good side,” he said.

“We need to get through the next couple of weeks and still be up and around there by Christmas, when we can expect some of the big guys back.

In the meantime, Old Boys can rely on the old head of Williams to marshall the three-quarters.

But his manager concedes that the absence of Saville was still partially evident at the weekend.

“We were just lacking that final pass on Saturday,” he said. “Ross (Saville) had a good understanding with Scott Buchanan and Knight but Mark Williams is a different type of player.”

Despite the supposed lack of a cutting edge, tries from White and Ross Peters in the second half secured the win leaving Peaple comfortable about his team’s prospects for the remainder of this season - regardless of absentees.

“We just need to get that end product right, but that’ll come and we’ve managed so far,” he said.

“We’ve got all bases covered.”

n In South West 1 East, Wootton Bassett fell to a 50-0 home defeat to High Wycombe.

Bassett’s miserable run this season continued against the fourth-placed side, and the Stoneover Lane outfit have still failed to register their first points of the campaign.

Bassett remain bottom of their difficult new division and, with a string of tough fixtures on the horizon, it will take a lot of mental resolve to overcome both their opposition and their own injury problems - particularly in the tight five - in order to secure their league survival.