Bodicote Park - Saturday 16th January 2016

Match report by Ed Phillips, action photos & video clip by Simon Grieve

The Bulls had it largely their own way in a pretty one sided match, but Bedworth’s desire did not falter until the final whistle. Whilst the Bulls backline will take a lot of the credit as they ran in all 11 tries, it was a win built on another solid foundation from the Banbury pack who were up against a larger Bedworth scrum.

Despite the score line the game started relatively evenly with Bedworth gaining possession in the Bulls half through Phillips misguiding a box kick straight into touch from outside the 22. Bulls soon turned over the ball and two more box kicks from Phillips put The Bulls in Bedworth’s line 22, and It was right wing Josh Deegan who opened the scoring following a Bulls lineout 15 metres out, crossing in the corner and running round under the post to give Phillips an easier conversion attempt to make it 7-0.

Banbury’s counter attacking has been strong all year and Bedworth learned this the hard way, when a kick missed touch and was passed in field to Joes Mills who carved open the defence and fed Stoop who ran the ball in under the posts, Phillips converted, 14-0. Bedworth then had a period of possession, retaining the ball well. Banbury improved on last week’s ill-discipline and defended well, this finally lead to a Bedworth error, and the ball went to ground. Inside centre Matt Goode was first to react, picked the ball up and ran in under the post unopposed, dotted down and Phillips again slotted an easy kick, 21-0.

Banbury were getting the taste for points and were taking advantage of gaps in the Bedworth defence as they tried to reorganise. While trying to cover an overlap the visitors left a whole in the middle of the park, fly half Sam Stoop, saw this and stepped through the hole and crossed under the posts again. Phillips’s players were making life easy for him and he slotted another easy kick to make it 28-0 and securing the bonus point in the first half for the second week running.

This didn’t mean the Bulls were done before half time. Following the visitors lose head saw red for expletives to the referee, the contest was all but over. The Bulls put together some flowing rugby which ended in Goode feeding his skipper, who dotted down under the posts and converted, and Banbury went 35-0 up. Before the half was up Beworth found time to rally! They played to their strengths and kept the ball tight with a tap and go from a Banbury infringement at a line out. Critics will say the Banbury defence let Bedworth through, but credit where its due the Bedworth forwards took their chance well, and converted to make the score at half time 35-7.

In the second half Bedworth faced a huge challenge in a team at the opposite end of the table who were 28 point and a man up. They battled and battled, but Banbury were simply too strong for them. The bulls added more tries from Jed Boyle and 2 from Joe Mills (pictured), but to their credit Bedworth were forcing Banbury to score out wide, and Phillips could only add 2 of the 3 conversions, making the score 54-7.

Banbury still weren’t done! Their afternoon of dominance was predicted by many, but this doesn’t give Bedworth enough credit for the character they showed all afternoon. The Bulls went on to add 3 further tries, and the well “oiled” crowd started to give kicker and captain Ed Phillips some friendly “encouragement” when kicking from in front of the club house.

Jimmy Manley collected a Joe Mills kick ahead and Phillips hit the post to make the score 59-7. Then Matt Goode and Josh Deegan gave Phillips two more attempts from in front of the new Clubhouse, missing the first Phillips rounded of a great win for Banbury by adding the extras from the touchline to make the score 71-7.

Banbury saw their gap at the top extend by another point to 4 as Earlsdon again failed to get the bonus point in their victory. It’ll be a tougher encounter next week away to 4th placed Berkswell and Balsall.