Chinnor fall to Old Elthamian’s tactical kicking

CHINNOR started with a strong cross wind in their favour and tackled well to prevent Old E’s from crossing the gain line and keeping most of the play in the opposition’s half. Chinnor then took an early lead winning quick line out ball for the three quarters to use a miss move to put full back, Ollie Heath through a gap for an unconverted try.

Chinnor’s enthusiasm resulted in a penalty to Old E’s who kicked deep into Chinnor’s 22m area. A driving maul from the resulting line out put their No 8, Nelmes over for a try converted by full back White.

An Old E’s error on the half way line enabled Jack Adams to flick the ball between his legs to winger Jake Olley who sprinted to the line to score Chinnor’s second try converted by Heath.

Old E’s were unfortunate not to score just before half time but the disallowed try was deemed to involve a double movement of the ball so Chinnor led 12 – 7 at the interval.

Old E’s started well in the second half when a Chinnor penalty failed to make touch allowing their winger to weave his way into the Chinnor half. From the resulting maul Old E’s used the wind to kick deep into Chinnor’s try line and their winger Dowsett won the race to the touch down for an unconverted try. For the next 20 minutes Old E’s used high kicks and grubber kicks to pin Chinnor in their own 22m area and forcing lineouts from which their forwards drove over to score two tries for Rudland-Thomas and Culllen. White kicked one conversion and later a penalty to create a 27 – 12 lead for the home team.

Chinnor then replied with determined running and second phase handling for a good five minutes. Eventually centre Alex Dancer found a gap to score under the posts with Heath being successful with the conversion. With just 5 minutes to go there was not enough time for Chinnor to score again to earn themselves a losing bonus point. Old Elthamians ran out worthy winners 27 – 19 points.

SOURCE: Contributed