Chinnor ‘confident’ and ‘excited’ at facing Richmond

MATT Williams, Director of Rugby, has said that his Chinnor side head into this weekend’s mouth-watering clash at home to Richmond full of confidence as they bid to end 2019 on a high.

The Thame-based side welcome the leaders to Kingsey Road on the back of a seven-match unbeaten run in the third tier. Chinnor’s fine form includes four successive home victories, with last week’s 37-27 triumph over Darlington Mowden Park being one of their stand-out performances of the National League 1 campaign. The Oxfordshire club want to make sure they head into the Christmas break on a good note and close the five-point gap to Richmond, who won the reverse fixture back in September.

Matt Williams: “We owe them one, but I think the important thing for us is that this is deemed as just the next game in a long season. I don’t want our unbeaten run to become this big thing, but momentum is key – I say it every week. We’re feeling good at the moment and training is going well. It’s another week, but with the added opportunity of leapfrogging Richmond if the result goes our way. The guys are confident, they’re excited!

“Last Saturday was definitely the best performance of the season as a whole over 80 minutes. and it’s about replicating and improving this week.”

Jason Worrall has been one of Chinnor’s star performers in the first half of the season and crossed for a tenth time in the victory over Darlington. That score helped him become the league’s joint leading try-scorer and Williams was full of praise for the South African, saying: “Jason is a great character to have around and he is a professional as well. Culturally he’s great within the squad and we’ve got a few boys back now that add that bit of experience and seriousness.

“It was good to have Will Harries back on the pitch last week and I felt a few boys really stood up. Nick Selway had his best game for us; Chris Elder was great again, and I thought Callum Watson was superb – each week he plays he gets that fraction better. It was a good team performance and there were several strong displays amongst the group.”

Chinnor will be without lock, Ehize Ehizode (concussion), while they will make a late call on the fitness of captain Carl Kirwan and centre Elder (both ankle).
SATURDAY’S SQUAD
Chinnor (v Richmond, home): from Ashby, Dancer, Elder, George, Goss, Harries, Kirwan, Laverick, Manning, May, McNulty, Pieterse, Ramshaw, C Ryan, W Ryan, Selway, Southworth, Thomas, Tyas, Watson, Worrall, Yawayawa.