The Banbury Bulls paid the ultimate price for not being able to turn a significant territorial and possession advantage into points as they lost their crucial bottom of the table clash with Leamington on Saturday by 17 points to 7.

Sign’s were ominous early on in the match as Leamington’s first chance with the ball in hand saw them move the ball wide from their own twenty-two line and the ease in which they broke through the Bulls backline defence would have sent alarm bells through the side. Fortunately some excellent cover defence stopped an early score being recorded.

The continuity of Leamington’s play allowed them to test the Bulls defence as they were often able to offload in the tackle which allowed the support runners to get in behind the Bulls defence.

It was from one such typical movement that saw the first points of the game recorded. Making good yards through the Bulls midfield the Leamington forwards then muscled the ball into the Bulls twenty-two before the ball was moved to the right hand side where a numerical advantage allowed the Leamington right wing to stroll in to score. The successful conversion gave the home side a 7 point lead.

A missed penalty kick at goal from the home side five minutes later seemed to be the catalyst for the Bulls to work themselves into the game and for the first time in the match they dominated both territory and possession spending long periods of time camped in the Leamington twenty-two.

However the Bulls inability to maintain possession of the ball for long periods time and again let the home side off the hook as they only had to defend for two or three phases before the ball would be turned over which enabled them to clear their lines.

In fact Leamington’s second try came from one such turnover from just inside their own half and with the Bulls backs still in an attacking situation the Leamington fly half spotted a huge gap in behind the Bulls right wing and a clever kick over the top bounced kindly for their left wing who gathered the ball and ran in to score untouched. The conversion missed to leave the score at 12 points to nil.

While the home side were taking the limited chances they had the Bulls were performing at the other end of the scale, having numerous opportunities to register points but not able to do so.

Just before the half time break a rare visit by the home side into the Bulls twenty-two once again saw them cross the line to score their third try of the match. This came courtesy of some quick thinking as they took a tap penalty and caught the Bulls defence knapping and although the conversion attempt missed a handy 17 point lead had the home side half way to tasting victory for the first time this season.

The second half produced a much better performance from the Bulls as they tried to turn the game around, unfortunately the poor handling that had plagued them in the first half continued and although they looked a lot more dangerous the end result was continually the same.

Finally after 10 minutes the Bulls got over the line for an all important try as they eventually held on to the ball for a period of time with the end result being a first try for the club to outstanding open side flanker Will Oldham.

The majority of the final 30 minutes saw the Bulls on attack and the home side defending valiantly as they continually thwarted anything remotely dangerous that the Bulls threw at them and it was their commitment and desire in defence that eventually got them home.

Bulls coach Grant Holmes was bitterly disappointed with his side’s performance considering the magnitude of the match.

“Ultimately Leamington wanted it more than us, they were pumped up for the match and they put their heart and soul into getting that all important victory from number 1 to 15, whereas our performance overall was somewhat lacklustre. That surprised me as we all knew how important getting a victory was to our survival chances, yet we failed to show up with our “A” game.”

“Territorially and possession wise we had a huge advantage in both aspects but were unable to turn this into points. Our biggest problem was our inability to hold onto the ball long enough to put the opposition under immense pressure, too often we turned the ball over in the first couple of phases which meant we were never able to work the opposition to breaking point.”

“Add to this a very good defensive display from Leamington who not only tackled well but scrambled exceptionally well when on the back foot and when you add to this their desire to be first to the breakdown in numbers to either steal or slow down our ball we fell well short of the standard of rugby we needed to play at to get the result we so desperately needed.”

“The result puts a large dent in our aspirations to survive in this league but it was not the be all and end all. We have 10 games to go and as one player mentioned in the post game debrief there are 50 points up for grabs and as long as we stick together, work hard together as a squad we are capable to gaining the points we require, but we must learn quickly from our shortcomings. Until it is mathematically not possible I and the team will always believe we can do it.”

“We lost our influential captain Eddie Phillips 15 minutes into the game with a knee injury and then his replacement Chris Davies went down with what looked to be a similar injury within two minutes of entering the game. Full credit to Chris though he stayed on the pitch and battled his way to the end of the game. At just 18 years of age he showed great character. There were quite a few walking wounded towards the end of the game so it will be a tense few days to see how everyone recovers before this Saturday’s important home fixture against Nuneaton Old Edwardians.”