Seconds outplay the Southend boys

Chinnor Seconds Match Report for 3rd March 2012
Chinnor Seconds vs. Southend RFC
Chinnor Seconds hosted Southend, another National 2 league team with their second team in the shield, again a hard game in this very competitive league. After our experience from our trip down to them we knew it was going to be a hard and extremely physical and so it was.
In the first half Southend had the wind and the sun at their backs and needed to have at least a 15 point lead to have any chance for winning. From the onset the game was played between the two 22 metre lines with both teams attacking and defending well and very little to choose between the two sides, but Chinnor were struggling to settle down to play their normal rugby after their cup game on Monday night. On fifteen minutes Max Williams was harshly yellow carded for knocking the ball out of play, the ball had actually come one of their players. With 20 minutes on the clock the Ref then missed a crossing error and Southend took the advantage and scored a converted try. The Chinnor pack had dominated from the start and continued to put more pressure on Southend which caused a number of off the ball incidents with both teams equally to blame, but it took Chinnor till the thirtieth minute before they got their first points. Danny Burns scored a try after a lot of pressure from the Chinnor forwards and narrowed the gap to 7 points to 5, and that is how the first half ended. Chinnor were quietly confident knowing that Southend needed to have more points in order to hold the lead with the wind factor taken into account.
After a team talk at half time Chinnor came out more determined and played good rugby and put Southend on the back foot with the wind at their backs. Chinnor took the lead just on forty five minutes with a penalty by Sam Angell, 8 points to 7. Chinnor continued to take the game to Southend which frustrated them and they had no answer to the Chinnor pack and the off the ball incidents also continued. Fifty five minutes in Al Blewitt came off the bench and in five minutes scored two tries with some great work by the pack, one try was converted by Angell, and Chinnor had increased their lead to 20 points to 7. Chinnor kept using the wind to their advantage. Just on seventy minutes Trevor Powell kicked the ball down field from his own 10 metre line and when the Southend fullback finally got his hands on the bouncing ball he had three Chinnor players to deal with and no help from his own team which allowed Chinnor to clean out and send Angell over for a try and a bonus point. Another try followed when Max Williams picked up a ball on the Southend ten metre line and broke through the Southend backs by scoring under the posts, again converted by Angell. The game finished 32 points to 7 in Chinnor’s favour. A very good team effort and man of the match this week goes to Simon Matthews a very influential player in tough games. Walter McGuicken. Chinnor Seconds Manager