Chinnor bounced back from Hartpury defeat with a last gasp victory away at Ampthill to notch their second home and away double of the season. Sustaining their incredible away form Chinnor made it 6 consecutive wins on the road to keep themselves in the hunt for a play off spot. It was Kieran Goss who got the all-important score in the dying moments of a pulsating contest, where the lead changed hands on several occasions, to put Chinnor 1-point ahead with seconds remaining. But the drama was not over when in the 11th minute of injury time Chinnor were penalised for sealing off and the Mob had one last attempt to snatch the win, but the penalty attempt was wide and Chinnor came way with the spoils.
In a game that was somewhat error strewn both Gossy and Freddie Owsley bagged braces and Nick Smith dominated Chinnor’s attack with a stunning hat trick of assists.

Ampthill got off to a flying start when they capitalised on a Chinnor mistake in midfield and moved the ball wide for Kildunne to open the scoring. It was Gossy who hit back with is first score when his poacher’s instinct got on the end of a clever Smith grubber into the goal area, 5-5 after 9 minutes.

Ampthill again benefited from Chinnor profligacy when the dangerous Mapalangi scored the game’s 3rd try in the 10th minute to regain the lead for the Mob.

Chinnor started to assert some control on proceedings and play the game in Ampthill’s half and after a series of attacks they narrowed the lead with a James Bourton penalty on 26 minutes, 10-8. A superb 50/22 kick from Owsley gave Chinnor the perfect opportunity to take the lead but an overthrow in the lineout saw Ampthill launch an attack from their own line and score with a well taken length of the pitch try. It didn’t seem important at the time but skipper Luke Carter raced all the way back to cut off his opposite number scoring close to the posts and ensuring a difficult conversion. Chapeau Luke! 15-8.

Chinnor again attacked through a weaving, mazy break from Owsley and when he found open space and looked for a scoring pass to the supporting Jamie Campbell, Ampthill infringed with a deliberate knock on and Chinnor had a attacking scrum 10 metres out with Ampthill reduced to 14 men.

Things went from bad to worse from a dominant scrum when Chinnor went blind and the inside pass was intercepted by Ampthill 9 who raced 80 metres to score his second long range try in 3 minutes, 22-8. Remarkably like Chinnor’s game against Ampthill at home last season where they gave away 2 interceptions in 5 minutes. Last year they failed to recover in time but this year they managed it by the skin of their teeth.

Encouragingly Chinnor seemed to take this latest setback in their stride and when Rob Hardwick burst through and linked with Izzy Wharton, the returning South African showed his running power and stormed deep into the 22. From the ensuing scrum Wharton finished his move in style as he powered over after a sharp Carter snipe. With a Bourton conversion it was 22-15 at the break and Chinnor would have been relieved to only have been one score down.

Chinnor started the 2nd half in sparkling form and with Ampthill still down to 14 men Owsley put his stamp on proceedings with two very sharp finishes down the left wing. Some good hands following a midfield bust from Bourton saw Smith hit Owsley with a lovely miss pass and the electric winger did the rest. His second was more of a virtuoso effort as he chipped through the defence, regained the kick and outstripped the cover to give Chinnor the lead for the first time. Having been 22-8 down on 39 minutes they were now 22-25 up after 47 minutes.

But plain sailing it was not as the Mob rallied and retook the lead on 50 minutes when the powerful Auvaa shrugged off would be tackles to score under the posts, 29-25.
Chinnor continued to spurn chances and with the minutes ticking away it was Smith who stepped up and nailed a kick to the corner. A seemingly unstoppable maul involving several backs was denied inches out and after several pick and goes the cool head of Smith called for the ball and looped a lovely 15 metre pass off his left hand to find the unmarked Gossy to canter in at the corner to add to has large collection of game winning scores.

Nick Easter “To win with 5 points away in this league is never easy and it was great to see Nick Smith step up in those crunch moments to dictate the result. However, we were well short of our best performance with a litany of mistakes which we’ll need to sharpen up on Friday against a resurgent Doncaster.”

Match Report - John Vaughan

FNL 7:45pm kick off vs Doncaster