On a warm, sunny Autumn afternoon down by the Thames the large crowd were entertained by some excellent running rugby in this high quality friendly.

Chinnor made 15 changes from the team that had battled so well in the National Cup and the team showed the strength in depth in the squad as they went toe-to-toe with the opposition.

Chinnor started off at an exceptional pace and played some fantastic high octane rugby with superb interplay and offloading from both forwards and backs. This led to a first score after 5 minutes when another free flowing move ended with Nathan dotting down, Tom converted 0-7.

Chinnor continued to attack but perhaps became a bit over confident and needless errors started to creep into the game with several scoring opportunities butchered by dropped passes, poor passing or extravagant off loads. This gave Marlow some hope and coupled with our serial indiscipline they piggy backed up the field to launch their first attack from a 5 metre lineout. Remarkably after 25 minutes they took the lead when again a series of penalties gave their physical back row too many chances to run. It was shades of watching Chinnor’s 1st team the day before when a seemingly comfortable win on the evidence of the first 20 minutes became a rather hard uphill struggle.

For diminishingly brief periods the boys still showed their ability and launched dangerous attacks which eventually saw Will L crash over to narrow the half-time deficit to 19-12.

With the wind and slope in our favour the win still seemed on the cards but the home side scored in rapid succession after 20 minutes to stretch their lead, led by their impressive No 8 and powerful 7, 29-12.

After multiple warnings the referee’s patience finally snapped as he issued a yellow card at the breakdown and Matty had a 10 minute breather. The boys stayed determined to run the ball and this deservedly led to two well worked tries, one for Tom after a chip from Ed and James releasing Nathan from a 5 metre scrum with a blind side to exploit.

Some themes the boys need to work on as some big league and cup games loom large. Discipline and listening to the referee are crucial, with over 20 penalties given away it’s unlikely that you’ll win many games. Getting off the line in D as most teams have big, physical ball carriers …stopping these at source is crucial.