Banbury Bulls made it five wins from seven games in the Midlands Three East (South) league competition on Saturday with a well earned 27-13 victory over Lutterworth.

Lutterworth has always been a difficult place to visit and come away with a win and to give themselves the best chance of this the Bulls decided to play with the elements in their favour in the first half in the hope of putting plenty of early points on the board before turning around and running up the hill and into a stiff breeze in the second half.

The opening stages of the game were evenly shared with both sides spending time with the ball in possession inside the opposition half but in those early stages neither side were able to put points on the board.

After the 10 minute mark the Bulls started to dominate the game and enjoyed a lion’s share of possession attacking both close to the breakdowns and out wide. Having been thwarted twice when close to the try line the Bulls opened the scoring with a long range attack which saw centre Dave Taylor slice through a gap and then weave his way through a lot of cover defence before linking with the supporting Ryan London who raced away to score under the posts. Fly half Andrew Lace was successful with the conversion to give the Bulls a 7 point lead and then only a matter of minutes later Lace was able to stretch that margin to 10 points with a penalty kick in front of the posts.

With the momentum now well and truly in the Bulls favour it looked as though the game was going to open up, a suggestion that had more weight added to it when the Bulls went over for their second try of the game. A catch and drive from a lineout 20 metres out was driven on by the forwards before Sean Bannister broke off down the blind side beat the first defender before going over to score in the tackle. Lace missed with his conversion attempt but at 15-0 there was a real likelihood that the Bulls would race out to an unassailable lead at the break.

The home side however, had other ideas. You could sense that they knew another Banbury try would make it near impossible for them to come back into it even with the elements in their favour in the second half so they raised their game played more to their strengths and kept themselves in the hunt with a penalty late in the half while also keeping the Bulls from adding any more points before the break.

A halftime score line of 15-3 was not what the Bulls had wanted or felt they required so they knew they would have to work hard into the breeze to maintain their lead.

First points of the half went to the home side, reducing the gap to 9 points with another penalty kick and with their tails up they went on the attack. However some resolute Banbury defence stopped them from crossing over the try line. Two further penalty attempts went wide to the relief of the Bulls players and soon after Banbury worked their way back into the game by keeping the ball a bit tighter and going through their phases of play. This seemed to strengthen the side as they enjoyed their best patch of the second half which resulted in a try to Taylor. After taking the ball to the defence on several occasions through the forwards the ball was passed out wide where Bannister raced towards the line with support outside him. Poor option taking could have cost the Bulls at this stage but fortunately they were able to win quick ball and with the defence and sixes and sevens Taylor went over in the corner. The conversion from wide out into the wind missed.

With a 14 point lead and 15 minutes to play the Bulls put the game beyond doubt when some solid work in defence saw Lutterworth drop the ball and with Bulls captain Simon Brand on hand to scoop it up he ran through a couple of would be tacklers and raced over the half way line towards the try line. With only a few yards to go the cover defence got to him but a strong hand off allowed him to break free and score.

The successful conversion put the game beyond doubt at 27-6 but it was the home side that had the final say after some ill discipline from the Bulls allowed them a line out only 10 metres out and from there they drove towards the line and eventually got over to score.

The rest of the game was played out and at the final whistle Banbury were pleased to come away from the fixture with a 27-13 win.