ENGLISH CLUBS CHAMPIONSHIP: Borough's winning run comes to an end

The city side were at Melton Mowbray for their latest Midlands Division One (East) fixture and were pipped 25-24. Their only other loss this term, in the first game of the season at Huntingdon, was also by a point 21-20.

Borough, although disappointed with the result, did, however, pick up two bonus points and have actually moved up a place in the table to fifth.

They started the match okay and in fact had much the better of the first half even though they played uphill.

Winger Mooki Tshepo-Olebile, scorer of a hat-trick of tries last week, crossed twice today, and with Michael Bean also scooting his way over the tryline and Joe Andresen adding a conversion, Borough were sitting on a 17-13 lead at the interval.

Tom Stuffins grabbed the bonus point try in the second half after an electrifying break by Andy Carruthers from inside his own 22 and after good support work by Ben Higton. Andresen converted.

But for the last half-an-hour Borough didn’t play well.

Melton’s big pack kept the ball tight and managed to squeeze in for two tries. The last one came with 10 minutes to go and gave the Leicestershire side the narrowest of victories.

Vice-chairman Archie Bennett said: “We gave it away in the second half. But we’ll take the two points and move on. We know we can do much better.”

Oundle were at league leaders Old Northamptonians and suffered a 35-7 beating and have dropped to seventh in the table.