The Banbury Bulls continued their winning form in the Midlands Three East (South) league with a 31-12 victory over Northampton BBOB on Saturday at Bodicote Park, a victory which moved the Bulls up from fourth to third place in the competition.

Far from a great spectacle the game failed to get a great deal of flow with basic handling errors from both sides proving costly as several scoring opportunities were squandered due to bad handling, poor passing or wrong option taking.

However it was the home side who adapted best while playing into the elements and posted the first points fifteen minutes into the game. Some good attacking play down the right hand touch line enabled the Bulls to drive into the visitors half and once the ball was released to the outside backs on the left hand side of the field an overlap was created for left wing Adam Walsh who took the ball on the twenty two metre line and crossed, untouched for his first league try of the season.

A missed penalty by the visitor’s kicker from close range was a let off for the Bulls and one they eventually capitalised on when scoring their second try of the match. Scrappy ball from a scrum situation was tidied up and delivered to the Banbury backs who ran the ball from deep crossing into the oppositions territory and with their defence stretched the Bulls swung the ball wide to the right where after some very good cover defence the ball was recycled to hooker Liam Stratford who was on hand to dive over for the try to double the Bulls lead to 10-0.

The visitors continued to give a good account of themselves and will be rueing the fact that they missed a further two penalty attempts from very kickable positions which could have so easily enabled them to go into the half time break just a solitary point adrift of the Bulls. However, it wasn’t to be and when the half time whistle went the Bulls held that 10 point lead.

Playing with a stiff breeze at their backs in the second half was always going to help the home side but from the kick off it was the visitors who started the better of the two sides. Some surging runs in and around the breakdown enabled them to move deep into Bulls territory and after a couple of darts down the blind side it looked as though they had got their reward with a try in the corner, only to be denied by their own touch judge who flagged for a foot in touch just inches from the line.

From here the Bulls were able to kick themselves out of danger and soon after an attacking move by BBOB broke down just inside the Bulls territory where a loose pass was gathered up by Bulls scrum half Grant Holmes who raced away from the defence to score his team’s third try of the afternoon. The conversion attempt from Andrew Lace sailed between the posts to extend the Bulls lead to 17 points.

Soon after Banbury troubled the score board operator with their fourth try of the match, this time going of back row forward Eddie Cummings who crossed over after some enterprising play saw several passes off loaded out of the tackle before Cummings was able to wrestle his way over in the tackle. Lace’s second conversion of the match stretched the Bulls lead to 24-0.

All the while the visitors were still playing the game with great enthusiasm and at times had the Bulls defence stretched to near breaking point and eventually they got their just rewards with two tries late on in the game to narrow the gap, however in between times the Bulls managed a fifth try of their own with fly half Lace putting a cross field kick into the in goal area which Bulls right wing Jed Boyle won the race to score. Again Lace kicked the extras to leave the score at 31-12.