Witney 1st XV 0 vs.
Chinnor 1st XV 13
Sunday 16th January 2005
Oxfordshire Cup Quarter Final
In heavy
conditions Chinnor overcame a spirited Witney in the County Cup on
Sunday. Territorially it was almost all Chinnor who were restricted to
two tries and a penalty by some solid defence and brave last ditch
tackling by the home side. Chinnor fielded two young scrumhalves in
Morgan Thompson, a Pangbourne 6th former, and Danny Byrne and with Simon
Matthews given a rest with bench duties handed the captaincy to Matt
Hutchins for the day.
For all of
Chinnor's pressure they only breached the Witney line once in the first
half with a Joe Winpenny try from a rolling maul. The conditions made
handling difficult as the ball was spilled by Chinnor on several
occasions with the line beckoning. A well struck penalty by James
Cathcart gave a half - time score line of 8pts to 0 to the visitors.
With the wind picking up and in Witney's favour the feeling was that the
game was all to play for but Chinnor upped their tempo and played almost
the entire second period in the Witney half of the field. A James
Cathcart try put the game beyond the reach of Witney.
Chinnor were
denied further scores by a mixture of defiant defence and the vagaries
of the referee where the law surrounding "penalty try " was obviously
not in his vocabulary.
This game must
also surely enter the records as the longest cup tie in the history of
the Oxfordshire Cup in that a total of 25 minutes of injury time was
played. Spectators of both sides were endeavouring to imitate the sound
of his whistle to call no-side.
