On a gloomy, grey day, the rugby on display matched the weather with Chinnor just managing to scrape through with a 10-8 victory at home to Bournemouth.

Chinnor, with a significant injury and absence list, had to bring in several replacements. Whelan started for Pickett, Morgan for Stoop, Hastings for Mowbray, Cathcart for Hewitt. Angell and Devine were moved up from the 2s and Seymour and Prescott were back after a long lay off.

The first half began with Chinnor defending against a determined Bournemouth side. In one of the few breakouts from their own half, Chinnor opened the scoring in the 13th minute. Overturning ball, Chinnor ran the ball through their backs. With space running out on the right hand side, Williams put in a grubber kick which bounced up at the right moment into Seymour’s midriff to allow him to scamper under the posts for a try. Cathcart converted to put Chinnor 7-0 up. A few minutes later, a Chinnor indiscretion was punished with a penalty goal from Bournemouth fly half Dan Pollard to make the match score 7-3 in favour of Chinnor, which remained the score until half time.

The second half began much like the first half, Bournemouth with all the ball and territory. This superiority was converted to points in the 49th minute when Bournemouth exploited a 4 on 2 overlap for Sam Yarwood to score in the corner. With the resultant kick unsuccessful, Bournemouth led for the first time in the match by 8 points to 7.

Chinnor then began to get more into the match and had several visits to within 10 metres of their opponent’s line but all resulted in penalties awarded against the home side. From one of the rare penalties in Chinnor’s favour, Cathcart recovered the lead for Chinnor with a penalty goal to make the score 10-8 on the 68th minute. Chinnor managed to defend this score until the referee blew for full time.

Bournemouth couldn’t quite find a way of breaking through a very resilient Chinnor defence and sometimes resorted to less favourable means in order to gain an advantage.

This was another match in which the opposition had most of the ball and territory but foundered on stiff and well organised defence. Huw Morgan had a promising start for Chinnor, Matt Goode looked threatening in his few possessions of the ball and Harry Jackman’s industrious defence was admirable.

The highlight of the match was the swarm of under 6 Minis, resplendent in Chinnor jerseys, coming on as water boys during stoppages. The timing of their runs and general handling served as pointers to the others on the pitch.

Scorers:
Chinnor: Seymour T; Cathcart C, PG
Bournemouth: Yarwood T; Pollard PG