An excellent and characterful performance from Chinnor in trying conditions.

Horizontal rain of the freezing kind, greeted both teams on the morning of the first meeting of these Oxfordshire rivals at U13 level. With the original pitch deemed waterlogged the match moved to pitch 4. With cold hands the order of the day it would be interesting to see which team handled the weather better. Chinnor fielded a strong squad peppered with players from the B team. Chinnor started nervously with a number of knockons from both forwards and backs resulting in a few early scrums. After 5 mins or so Chinnor finally got the ball wide and Biss scored in the corner. Chinnor were now dominating possession and ran in a further 5 tries with 2 further scores from Biss and one each from Pietersen and Scorey. Half-time 29-0.

The second half started with a Chinnor kick-off and Day recovered the loose bouncing ball and set up a very quick early try. Banbury's heads went down and Chinnor, despite the cold, were turning on a great rugby show dominating the set pieces and loose play and not allowing Banbury to get anything going. The second half produced 6 tries, 3 from Biss (hat trick in each half!) and scores from Burkitt, Pearce and Pietersen. Nicholls converted 8 of the 11 scores for a personal tally of 16 points. Banbury scored a consolation try as the result of a clever long kick-off but this had no real bearing on the final score.

Overall an excellent and characterful performance from Chinnor.