Bodicote Park - Saturday 12th April 2014

Match reporting by Bob Mitchelmore, action photos and video by Simon Grieve.

Banbury ended their league campaign with a deserved but far from flawless performance in front of a large crowd at Bodicote Park, and will be ruing missed opportunities earlier in the season as they finished just a single point behind league champions, Earlsdon. The Bulls now face a play-off game away at Crewe & Nantwich for promotion to the Midlands One league.

Whilst the Bulls back division has gained most of the plaudits this season it was the forwards who took centre stage against a bigger and heavier Stourbridge pack. Banbury were soon on the scoreboard when prop forward, Rory Dymond (pictured below), who was to enjoy an oustanding afternoon in both tight and loose, made a rampaging break down the middle of the field, scattering the Stourbridge defence, allowing hooker, Brett Richmond to cross by the posts leaving Eddie Phillips an easy conversion.

With the Bulls seeking to play a high tempo game the lead was increased when from a quickly taken penalty veteran No 8, Simon Brand made good ground before releasing 2nd rower Jacob Mills to cross for his first try for the Bulls. Further good handling by backs and forwards eventually created the space for Nick Pratt, another to have a big influence in the game, to score. With Phillips adding the extras the Bulls went into the break with a comfortable 19-0 lead.

The opening of the 2nd period saw Banbury putting the Stourbridge defence under under considerable pressure, but good tackling by the visitors and handling errors from the Bulls kept the Stourbridge line intact, but eventually the pressure told with Phillips increasing the lead with a simple penalty.

With the result in little doubt Banbury allowed errors to creep into their game which enabled Stourbridge to establish an attacking position from which the Stourbridge lock crashed over the line.

This score gave encouragement to the Lions who continued to attack, but an attempted grubber kick on the Bulls 22 rebounded into fly half Dan Tooth's arms and he had the pace and foot work to beat the defence with a length of the field run.Stourbridge, to their credit, refused to allow their heads to drop and weak Banbury tackling allowed them to cross for a converted try.

This seemed to galvanise the Bulls as from the restart they were able to retain possession through a number of phases which resulted in flanker, Chris Phillips, to cross for the try converted by brother Eddie. With the play becoming increasingly scrappy in the closing stages Stourbridge had the final say with a deserved third try.

Whilst the Bulls will be disappointed to have missed out so narrowly on automatic promotion, they can look back with pride to a magnificent second half of the season, and now look forward to both the league play-off game and the Oxfordshire County Cup Final which will be played at the Iffley Road, Oxford ground on Wednesday 7th May.

Harry Oakes - one of Banbury's crack Under 11 squad - was first to file a report from Saturday's Bulls win over Stourbridge.

FLASH REPORT by Harry Oakes

Straight from the kick off the Lions were on the back foot giving away a penalty in the 1st minute just in front of the ten meter line. Luckily for the Lions Eddy Phillips missed the pen that rattled of the posts.

Just minutes later Rory Dymond Hurtled over with a pass from Josh Deegan. Phillips managed to redeem himself by getting the conversion right in the centre of the sticks. 7-0.

The Lions were even more unfortunate as Nick Pratt scoring a 2nd try to add to Dymond’s for Banbury. The captain managed to get another conversion for his 4th point of the match.

Things kept getting worse and worse for Stourbridge due to the fact the Bulls 3rd try of the day coming from Jacob Mills but not the 3rd conversion. This meant at half time the score was 19-0 to the bulls.

The game got better and better from this point in for both teams. First to strike was Banbury through Chris Phillips to get them an extra 5 points and his brother got another 2. But not long after the Lions got back 7 points with a try from Stuart Doolittle and a conversion from Rhys Williams.

That gave the Lions a lot of encouragement as they got another from Sam Wilson and another Con. from Williams.

Dan Tooth must have got bored of conceding so he ran from the 10 meter line to score a great try. Unfortunately no con. from Phillips. But lions came back to score another 7 points through Dan Shrimpton and Rhys Williams.

Final score Banbury 34-19 Stourbridge.