Bodicote Park - Saturday 10th October 2015

Match reporting by Ed Phillips.

Banbury played into the wind first half and with a strong Berkswell & Balsall scrum and, as it transpired, were happy to turn around at 0-0. Neither side really got going in the first half which proved to be a stalemate. Both sides missed penalties, and Berkswell were marginally the better side.

The second half opened up a bit more but there were constant infringements from both sides. Banbury’s game plan was to use the wind and the accurate left boot of debutant Sam Stoop to press Berkswell & Balsall into their 22. This plan looked to be working as Banbury were collecting any loose clearances and looked dangerous on the counter attack.

It was from one such counter that the Bulls scored their only try of the game. Full Back Joe Mills collected the ball on the left touch line and looked to spread the ball wide, Sam Stoop saw the broken defensive live in front of him and took the ball at pace and made a 30 yard break beating numerous players only to be hauled down 5 metres short of the line. The rest was simple, Banbury won the ball at the ruck, Phillips hit Mills, threw a long miss pass to Deegan (pictured) who went over in the corner. Stoop went close but missed the conversation from the touch line.

This sparked the game into life and both teams were thrashing away at each other’s defences, which were both impressively solid for the main part. Both sides had opportunities to score and would have felt that on another day they would have put these chances away. Phillips took over the kicking duties and added two penalties to make the score 11-0.

Berkswell & Balsall knew they had to get the next score, and that is exactly what they did. After 4 attempts the Berkswell pack managed to push the 7 men of Banbury over the line after Sean Banister was yellow carded for retaliation. An important conversion was added from out wide to make the score 11-7.

Banbury stuck to their game plan pinning the visitors deep into their half, but in the final play of the game Berkswell & Balsall found themselves with a big overlap and ran the ball from deep. Perhaps naively Banbury had four players covering the clearance kick and the pace of the Berkswell winger put paid to any Banbury cover defence. The visitors scored in the corner to go ahead by a point and again the extras were added from wide and Berkswell & Balsall took the win 14-11.

Banbury felt they should have closed the game out and remain unbeaten, and a very quiet changing room reflected that after the game. Banbury’s next league action is on the 24th of October away to Droitwich where they will look to return to winning ways and keep a firmer grip on the top spot.