Chinnor 2nds Meet London Welsh – By Walter McGuicken

AS in the past, Chinnor seconds aimed high again, this time against London Welsh, who are in the Canterbury League 1, equivalent to Chinnor?s first?s in the South West 1 and whose first team is in the national 1 league.
This match, on Saturday, February 25, provided exceptionally high quality opposition for the team for the fourth time this season. This being due to a lack of teams available to play at their level.
Tom Wood was unable to lead his boys out this week due to work commitments and the job was left in the capable hands of Matt Hutchings and senior players. The game as usual was very physical and hard, which the seconds have come to expect when they play this quality of opposition.
It took London Welsh until the 15th minute before they broke the Chinnor line with a push over try followed 5 minutes later with a carbon copy try.
Chinnor?s first points came in the 26th minute by way of a penalty by James Hewitt who was a late replacement for Richard Williams. Chinnor was then punished soon after by a missed tackle in the centre that allowed the dragons to score under the posts. In the 40th minute Ben Hewitt chased down a kick by his brother to score and was converted by James and the first half finished 17pts to 10 in favour of London Welsh.
The second half started with a missed tackle after 5minutes which gave the dragons a soft converted try, however Chinnor were very unlucky not to get more points on the board in the next 20 minutes as they played some very good and attacking rugby without reward.
Unfortunately for Chinnor and although all the boys played well they conceded 2 converted tries in a 3 minutes spell with some shoddy defensive play and London Welsh increased their lead to 38 points to 10.
To add insult to injury the ref missed a player chasing a ball from an off side position which gave the London Welsh boys another try.
The game finished with London Welsh winning 43 point to 10.
All 22 players of the Chinnor team can be very proud of the show they put on for the spectators against such a high quality opposition team.

Score: Chinnor 2nd 10 pts vs London Welsh 43 pts