Bodicote Park - Saturday 13th December 2104

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

With a personal haul of 22 points it was skipper, Eddie Phillips, who guided the Bulls to victory in an often niggly encounter and whilst they will be pleased with the win against an abrasive Pinley side there will be some disappointment they failed to gain an all important try bonus point.

It was Phillips who put early points on the board with his first of five penalties, but Pinley responded with the opening try of the match when centre Harry Marks ran through weak Bulls tackling to score under the posts. Andy Taylor adding the simple conversion.

Whilst Banbury dominated territory, helped by holding the edge in the scrummage,solid Pinley defence kept their line intact and it was left to Phillips to punish the visitors ill-discipline with a brace of penalties to nudge the Bulls into a narrow lead.

A turning point in the game came in the closing moments of the first half when Banbury won a turnover deep in their own half and a well judged miss pass from fly half, Lionel Byrne, put Carl Daniels into space and having made good ground fed the supporting Dan Tooth who outpaced the defence to score in the corner, giving Banbury a ten point advantage at the break.

The early exchanges of the secong half saw Banbury on the front foot and further ill discipline from Pinley led to a number of infringements which earned a yellow card for their fly half, Leighton Clarke and Phillips extended the lead with the resulting penalty.

With Pinley down to fourteen men Banbury continued to press and from a five metre scrum the dominant Banbury pack paved the way for Phillips to cross for a try (pictured above) which he converted.With little seasonal goodwill on show the game became marred by a number of off the ball incidents which culminated in Banbury's Dan Tooth being shown a red card for retaliation in a confrontation with the Pinley second row, Jack Dyson, who saw yellow.

Pinley took advantage to mount a series of attacks but the Banbury defence remained firm with Carl Daniels making a magnificent tackle when Pinley looked certain to score, and it was Phillips with his fifth penalty who completed the scoring to leave the Bulls worthy winners.

Whilst suspension looms for the somewhat unlucky Tooth the Bulls squad should be strengthened by the return of second row forwards, Nick Pratt and Matt Brock who both missed this match as well as Jed Boyle, who will have served his suspension, for next week's match at home to Droitwich.