Banbury Bulls suffered their first loss of the season as they were knocked out of the Intermediate Cup by Old Laurentians who successfully kicked a penalty in the last minutes to take the win.

Banbury began brightly and could have scored at least two tries in the opening quarter but poor decision-making and turnover ball prevented the try from coming. Banbury had to make do instead with a penalty from centre Mike Smith.

Old Laurentians however hit back making full use of the weather conditions to put Banbury under pressure. The home sides kick-and-chase tactics paid dividends as Banbury struggled to clear their lines and OLs stretched out to a 13-3 lead with two tries and a Denzil Evans penalty in quick succession.

But a quick Banbury tap penalty in the OLs 22 by scrum-half Eddie Phillips caught the hosts napping and a good pass allowed Darren De Bruyn to run in untouched for a welcome try that went uncoverted.

Trailing 13-8 at the break, Bulls reduced the hosts lead to 13-11 with a penalty from Pete Papenfus who was close with two other long-range efforts before an Evans penalty made it 16-11. With time running down Banbury looked to have snatched the victory after the referee missed an obvious knock-on from a line-out on the OLs 22. As the Laurentians’ defence stopped, waiting for the whistle to go, the ball was kicked ahead and rebounded off the post where No 8 Simon Brand won the race for the ball and touched down for try. With a successful conversion by Papenfus, the Bulls now lead 18-16 with just minutes remaining.

However it was not to be and Banbury conceded a kickable penalty with just 90 seconds remaining for using hands in a ruck, and Evans stroked the ball over to win the game.

Banbury return to league action when they host Lutterworth at Bodicote Park on Saturday, with a President’s Buffet starting the day at 1pm followed by a 3pm kick-off.

To view pictures of this game please visit:
http://raytodd.jalbum.net/OLs%202009-10/H-Banbury/index.html