Banbury welcomed fellow Midlands 1 West newcomers Lichfield to Bodicote Park looking to kickstart both their season and their treasured home record.

Continued changes across several positions once again gave the Bulls an unsettled feel with player-coach Grant Holmes being called in to start at scrum-half and Dave Taylor making his first start of the year.

However it was winger Carl Daniels who was to make the first impression as Banbury got off to the perfect start. A poor clearance kick by Lichfield was superbly fielded by Daniels just inside the Lichfield half. He then used his pace to run in the opening score after just 3 minutes. Fly-half Pete Papenfus was on target with the conversion as the home side took a 7-0 lead.

It was shortly after this that the wheels fell of the Banbury bandwagon. To many of the large crowd watching it seemed as though the Bulls had decided that tackling was optional, as strong running from the impressive Lichfield backs tore huge holes in the Banbury defence. The Bulls whitewash was crossed with disturbing regularity for the rest of the half and even a stern half time team talk was not enough to stem the tide as Lichfield scored six tries through Greg Massey (2), Adams (2), Brear and Burton and 5 conversions from Luke Massey in 46 minutes, leaving Banbury 40-7 adrift.

It was then that Banbury finally showed that they had the ability to compete and put together some good phases of rugby in both defence and attack. Replacement prop Henry Teare was the one to benefit from this step up by the Bulls as he muscled over from short range after some quick, multi-phase play stretched the Lichfield defence. Papenfus was off target with the conversion and the score stayed at 40-12.

And not long after the restart some solid defensive work from flanker Chris Phillips dislodged the ball from the attacking Lichfield backs. Number 8 Anthony McClellan pounced on the ball and unleashed Teare who ran in the try from the half way line. Papenfus added the extras to make it 40-19 and Banbury were now on the hunt for a 4-try bonus point.

But it was not to be, as Brear and Brown both scored further Lichfield tries to leave Banbury on the end of a 52-19 defeat. Bulls face an even sterner test as they travel to league leaders Dudley Kingswinford for next Saturday's fixture.