A poor all-round performance from Banbury against a well-drilled Whitchurch side was topped off by losing club captain Sean Bannister to a leg break midway through the first half.

A rather depleted squad meant that several changes had to be made to the team that had Bourneville so close the week before. Carl Daniels and Andy Collett returned on the wings and player-coach Grant Holmes stepped into scrum-half as Eddie Phillips moved to cover full-back.
The opening exchanges were reasonably well-matched but some strong running from the home side earned them a penalty deep in the Bulls 22. They elected to kick to the corner and a clean catch and drive saw them power over to open the score after 15 minutes.

Banbury responded well from the kick off and some good work from lock Anthony McLellan and flanker Chris Phillips allowed Collett to sneak in to score in the corner. However Whitchurch seemed to be the better-drilled side and Banbury struggled to stop them from crossing the gainline. This front foot ascendancy allowed the home side to extend their lead further.

Banbury were not out of the game by any stretch and continued to pressure the Whitchurch line. It was pressuring a Whitchurch clearance kick from their own line on 30 minutes that Bannister collided with the opposition fly-half, breaking his leg in the process. With an ambulance needed, the match was temporarily halted for twenty minutes whilst the injury was dealt with.

Unfortunately for the home side, this break seemed only to benefit the home side who cam out strongly and scored a further try right on the half-time whistle.

Looking to work themselves back into the game, Banbury struggled to make any headway as their basic skills deserted them. Too many knock-ons, missed passes and poor options were taken and the game seemed to be getting away from the visitors. The one clear cut chance that they did manage to create was illegally snuffed out by the Whitchurch winger who received a yellow card for his deliberate knock-on. However Banbury weren’t able to add to their tally in this period and looked at sea on a number of occasions.

With time drawing to a close Whitchurch gained their bonus point try and scored again with the very last play of the game to hand Banbury their biggest defeat of the season to date, 32-5.

The Bulls travel away to Camp Hill this Saturday looking for a vastly improved performance and their first league victory of the season.