Banbury played Cheltenham North on Saturday last looking to put together two league wins on the trot for the first time this season, and with their hosts sitting at the bottom of the league the Bulls travelled with a certain amount of confidence. With only a few changes to the personnel from the previous week’s victory Banbury looked to build on the consistency of selection and playing style and come away with another victory.

On a sunny yet windy day and on a pitch unusually hard for the time of year, Banbury got off to a bright start. Within the first 5 minutes, Number 8 Simon Brand had broken through the Cheltenham defensive line just inside the home team’s half and made good ground down the left wing. With the Cheltenham full-back covering across he looked to pass in-field to the supporting Carl Daniels. But the winger was hauled back before he had the ball, just 5 metres from the line and whilst a case for a penalty try or yellow card could be made, the referee decided to just award a penalty. Banbury looked to kick to the corner and attack again, but the home side defence stepped up and repulsed all that Banbury threw at them.

With this initial attack seen off, Cheltenham grew in confidence and with the wind behind them they kicked intelligently finding good field position deep in the Banbury half. Conversely the Bulls struggled to get any sort of flow going to their game and looked decidedly off the pace. And it was this field position and slowness of reaction that was to allow Cheltenham to open the scoring. With ruck ball won just inside the Banbury 22, the Cheltenham scrum-half spotted a gap as the Bulls fringe defence pushed up too quickly. Showing an admirable turn of pace he broke through the defence and rounded the full-back to score near the posts. With the conversion successful Banbury found themselves 7-0 down.

Things were to continue to deteriorate for the Bulls and they soon suffered again from being unable to clear their lines effectively. When a 22 drop-out was taken in middle of the Banbury half, it seemed there was little on. However the Bulls defensive line had instead gone for the catch and when this instead collected by the impressive Cheltenham Number 8, there was little in between him and the try line. It took just a simple pass to his supporting second row to beat the last defender and Banbury were 12-0 down, a scoreline that was to remain until half-time.

Banbury needed to come out of the blocks firing if they were to get back into this game, but again poor handling skills and wrong option-taking dogged their efforts. Despite this, Banbury fought their way back to 12-6 thanks to two well-struck penalties from fly-half Jed Boyle and needed to get the next score to put themselves back in the driving seat. But it was not to be as Cheltenham battered at the Bulls line before getting their third try to take the score to 17-6.

The visitors did finally manage to get over the Cheltenham whitewash in what was one of their few passages of good play. A strong break from centre Adam Walsh, who put in a man-of-the-match performance for the Bulls, was well followed up by the supporting pack. Their strong drives were finally brought to a halt just two yards from the Cheltenham line. However the cool head of experienced second-row Matt Brock was on hand to ensure the chance did not go begging. Picking the ball up and driving strongly he took two defenders over the line to score. Boyle was off target with the kick and Banbury were once again back in it at 17-11.

But again ill-discipline was to be the Bulls undoing as almost from the restart they conceded a penalty which stretched the home side’s lead to 20-11 and Banbury were unable to threaten the score sheet again. The last word went to Cheltenham North who scored their deserved bonus point try with the last move of the game following another strong run and offload by their Number 8. Final score Cheltenham North 25-11 Banbury.