Banbury opened their league campaign with a draw to a visiting Towcestrians, but could and should have gone one better after dominating the field position and territory.

Dominating the early exchanges, Banbury forced Towcs to concede a number of penalties, eventually giving fly-half Andrew Lace the opportunity to open Banbury's league account with a penalty goal.

Towcestrians' penalty count continued to rise and in short order they found themselves down to 13 men with both the visiting blind-side flanker, Baxter, and centre, Yeates, being sent to the sin-bin. The numerical advantage allowed the Banbury pack to start imposing itself with some excellent rolling mauls, but spirited defensive work kept Banbury from crossing the whitewash.

However, having sucked in the defence, and with men to spare, the ball was worked out to centre John Paton who was able to take advantage of the space and go over in the corner for the Bulls' first league try of the season. An unsuccessful conversion from wide out gave Banbury an 8-0 lead going into half time,and the home side could be happy with their first half performance.

It seemed that things were only going to improve after the break when fly-half Lace struck a successful drop goal to give the Bulls an 11-0 lead. However with the platform of a lead established, Banbury seemed to go off the boil and loose their shape. A quickly taken tap penalty that caught the Bulls defence napping allowed the visiting fly-half, George, to feed the ball to his supporting centre, Yeates, who barrelled over for a try. The easy conversion however was missed and Banbury still held an 11-5 lead.

However more Banbury mistakes saw chances go begging and the Bulls went increasingly into their shell, often taking the wrong option and seemingly content to play with slow ball. They were made to pay for these errors as Towcestrians full-back, Yuill, succesfully kicked a penalty to bring the score to 11-8.

As time ticked down Banbury looked to have done enough to hold out and take the league points until Banbury were penalised right at the death. With the last kick of the game Towcs full-back, Yuill, stepped up and duly slotted the penalty to bring the match to a close with an 11-11 draw.