Seconds lose for the first time since 2nd Feb 2012

Chinnor 2nd XV travelled to Old Albanians RFC for their first league game in the Zoo Shield Division 1 this season, after winning Div 2 North last season. This is always going to be a tough fixture and doubly-so when it’s away. We knew it was going to be a tall order with a lot of players unavailable for one reason or another. On top of that it was very disappointing having to look for players at the last minute. This resulted in adding to the challenge being away with only one on the bench.

Chinnor started well on a very hot sunny afternoon on a very wide rugby pitch and with both teams wanting to play open attractive rugby. It was an extremely tight game from the start; unfortunately a controversial penalty try from the first scrum infringement of the day gifted OA's 7 points and although Chinnor always looked the more threatening team a missed judge bounce of a rugby ball gave OA's another try and a lack of concentration gave Old Albanians their third try and Chinnor was always playing catch up rugby.

Chinnor scored the pick of the tries with Sam Angell bursting through the line at will, offloading to the supporting Tom Curry who in turn found Max Williams, giving it his all usual and scored under the posts. This was followed by a great try by Sam Portland. Both tries where converted by Sam Angell as well as two successful penalties and the first half finished 28 points to 20 in favour of the hosts.

The second half was a much closer contested game with the rub of the green not favouring OA's as it had in the first half. OA's scored a converted try and penalty, and a try by Baz Corpe as well as another penalty by Angell made the final points tally 38 points to 28 for the home team.

This week’s opponents were a marked step up from last week and Chinnor showed that they are more than capable of playing in this league. With far more positives than negatives to be taken from the game things look bright for this young squad.

This was a good performance by the team with some good individual performances as well. The man of the match this week goes to Sam Angell. With a friendly planned for this week against Barnes, we will have the opportunity of let trying some other combinations for the big one against Blackheath the week after.