Great result for Chinnor Oxen XV over Marlow

LAST Saturday saw an earlier kick off for Chinnor RFC Oxen XV at home to Marlow 4th team, in the Thames Valley Invitational league.
Having having been kept waiting for nearly an hour to kick off, the Oxen started sprightly and with their backs to the wind, were soon in control of the match. Tries from Dave Wells, Jon Brooks and two from Paul Ewens in the first half, were all converted by Dave Wells and the Oxen were 28-0 up at the turn around.

The match was closely fought with Marlow having the better of things in the scrummage. However, with a Chinnor back row of Jon Brooks, Steve Bridges and Mike Bailey, Marlow were starved of any purposeful possession. There were turnovers aplenty allowing a truely vintage set of backs, featuring Jeremy Philpott, Doug Humphries, Dave Wells, John Sellars, Tim Wright, Paul Ewens, Craig James, Neal Gilbert and Josh Hill to make the breaks and to pressurise the opposition at will.

There was only one score in the second half with young Josh Hill getting on the scorecard after several attempts meaning that Chinnor Oxen won this league match 33-0. Depriving Marlow of any points at all was the icing on the cake. If they had used the boot of their No 10 to better advantage the story may have been different.

A big thank you to those that turned out to play for the Oxen, with special mention to Captain mMrvel, Tim DeGlanville. Gareth ‘Stumpy’ Davis gave a truely inspirational stint at Prop and Craig Smith made his debut as the other prop. Stu Reynolds had the best game he has had for a long time.

Next Oxen XV league match v Drifters 2nds away on the December 6.

Dave Ratcliffe