On the 4th February 1998 Bill Gates’ dignity was violated whilst on a visit to Belgium when somebody threw a Pie on his face. Fast-forward to the same day 9 years later, this time it was the Wildboys who were having their dignity violated but this time with egg on their face after sending some goading tweets to their opposition 2 weeks prior when the original fixture had to be re-scheduled due to inclement weather.
The Wildboys line-up was without a few regulars, notably Captain George White (visiting the Circus) and fellow front rowers Sam Ludgate (injury) and Jon Goodson (holiday), along with George Hope (romantic getaway), Dan Coulon (at a Disco) and Will Taylor (retired?) to name a but a few. Nonetheless, the Wildboys highlighted the depth in their squad and fielded a strong 18, with thanks to Ollie Jackson, Josh Preston and Mark Bradburn for stepping in on the front row and for Zinny Norman filling in on the back row.
As the game kicked off it was clear that it was going to be a hard-fought encounter, there was hard running lines and big tackles being made by both sides, Chinnor came off worse in the opening minutes losing Ed Devine to injury after making a crunching tackle. The Wildboys bounced back and the deadlock was broken 10 minutes in when a break saw Jason Hankins released down the wing to touch down, the resulting conversion was expertly struck by Will Jones putting the score at 0-7.
It was the Wildboys who managed to capitalize their possession in the first quarter and were then touching down again, this time Max Wood was striding over under the posts. It was once again converted by Will Jones extending the lead to 0-14.
Amersham then applied the pressure and were pressing for their opening score of the day. The Wildboys handled the pressure well and defended stoically, however some Wildboys deal with pressure better than others. Max Wood is one of the latter and when one of the Amersham players stroked his face he saw no other option than to Rock Bottom him under the nose of the referee. His acrobatic defence technique saw Max sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes and in turn saw Amersham and Chiltern turn the screw. Two well worked tries from lineouts and a strong break through the middle of the park saw Amersham and Chiltern 15-14 up at the half time mark.
It was a great first half of rugby from both sides and a game which was held well in the balance between the two top teams of BBO1. As the second half began, both teams once again came out flying, Chinnor dominated the early play and were awarded with a penalty which was slotted well by Will Jones to make it 15-17. As the game was restarted there was a moment of confusion from the Wildboys, the ball was kicked high and long and in a moment of madness, the ball was volleyed into the hands of the oncoming Amersham winger, who strode through to touch down putting A&C back into the lead at 20-17. At this point, Chris Jeffcock was moved from the second row to the wing as Jason Hankins had to depart and before long he was scoring his first try for the Wildboys with a powering line cutting through the A&C defence. Will jones added the 2 points to make it 20-24 in favour of the Wildboys.
Next up was Amersham, good ball through the hand saw their backs scoring a well-earned try and put the score at 25-24. Chinnor responded well and a hard crashing line form Pieter Nell saw him scoring his first try for the Wildboys and will jones added the 2, making it 31-25 with 10 minutes of play left. Amersham closed the gap with another try through the hands putting the score at 31-30. Chinnor then applied some pressure, which was defended well by Amersham and a well-placed penalty saw them gain a line-out just beyond the half way mark. With 30 seconds left on the clock the line out was won by Amersham and somehow their outside centre found himself bursting through, much to the glee of the watching crowd. He placed the ball under the posts for the simple conversion and a final score of 37-31 in favour of Amersham and Chiltern.
It was a well-earned victory for Amersham and Chiltern and a fantastic game to watch for the neutral. The first defeat for Chinnor in the 2016/17 season sees their lead at the top of the league cut to just 8 points with 6 games remaining.
Although it was a loss, it was a great team performance from the Wildboys with stand-out performances from Max Wood, Chris Jeffcock, and a fine front-row effort from Mark Bradburn. This week’s man of the match performance came from Max Williams who was instrumental in all of Chinnor’s tries. The mare of the match has to be gifted to Max Wood for his yellow card despite a fantastic display for the 70 minutes he was on the pitch.
Next week sees the Wildboys travel to current league champions Bracknell for what is sure to be another tough fixture. Until then, keep it Wild….
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Man of the Match: Max Williams
Mare of the Match: Max Wood
Tries: J.Hankins, M.Wood, C.Jeffcock, P.Nell
Conv: W.Jones (4)
Pen: W.Jones