Old Centralians look to make it two wins on the spin when they host Okehampton in Regional 1 South West on Saturday.

They earned their third win of the campaign at the weekend with a 34-23 success at home to Weston-super-Mare, a victory that put a little daylight between themselves and the two teams below them in the 12-strong division.

Okehampton are one of those two teams – Drybrook are the other – and the Devon club are on a run of six successive defeats after winning two of their opening three games.

Old Centralians’ victory, meanwhile, ended a run of four defeats and chairman Malcolm Price said: “It was a very good win. We’ve had a lot of problems with injuries this season and haven’t been able to field a settled side.

“But everything seemed to click against Weston. The forwards did their job and they knew just the right time to release the ball to the backs who did the rest.”

Old Centralians had already enjoyed home wins over Devonport Services and Exmouth earlier in the campaign – 28-15 and 30-13 respectively – and Price said: “Devonport Services was a cracking win. They lost on Saturday but before then they’d been on a great run.

“And to put 30 points on Exmouth was really good, we usually have a tight game with them.”

Devonport Services are currently in the top four and Price continued: “We normally give the top sides a good game when they come to us.”

And the club’s supporters will certainly be hoping for a bonus-point win on Saturday.

“It’s a game we’re targeting, but you never know in rugby,” said Price. “We haven’t put the same side out twice this season, we’re hoping to get as many as possible of the side who beat Weston on the pitch against Okehampton.”

Price is in his first season as chairman of Old Centralians after taking over from Stan Fritchley, but although he’s new to the role, the 70-year-old is a very familiar face around the club.

“I played my first game for the club when I was still at school,” he said. “I played for the 3rds, it was against St Mary’s Old Boys.”

That was in 1968 and he went on to play for the 1^st XV for a good number of years before captaining the 2^nd XV for five years. He played much of his rugby in the centre and played his last game at the age of 49.

Since then he has spent time on the club’s committee and also did a two-year stint as president so Old Centralians have been, and continue to be, a huge part of his life.

“There’s six of us about the same age who have all done 50 years or more with the club – Alan Baldwin, Pete Hobbs, Tony Smith, Dave Turner and Martin Jones are the others,” he said. “We all played together.”

Baldwin is the current vice-chairman while Jones is on the club committee. Hobbs, Smith and Turner are all vice-presidents and Turner is also the club’s photographer.

It goes without saying that they were all as pleased as punch with the win over Weston-super-Mare and Price has been impressed by new skipper Harry Preece this season.

Preece, predominantly a scrum-half who can also play at 10, has taken over from his cousin Sam Preece and Price said: “He’s doing a good job, he’s still quite young but he’s taken to it well. The aim is to stay in the division this season and then see what happens.”