Chinnor’s second away match in succession saw them lose 41-29 to Bournemouth.
With the previous match’s wingers not available, Tristan Corpe and Pip Seymour came into the side, writes Bill O’Donnell.
Jordan Wood made his first full start of the season. With Tom Mowbray still injured, Liam Gilbert moved to the second row.
Straight from the kick-off, Bournemouth immediately pressurised the Chinnor 22. On 5 minutes, Frazer Wilford touched down for the first of Bournemouth’s 6 tries of the day and fly half Ben Stevenson converted to give the home side a 7-0 lead. Chinnor bounced back on the 11th minute where two phases of play from a 22 restart saw Corpe touchdown for an unconverted try. Stevenson, for Bournemouth, increased the home side’s lead to 10-5 with a well-struck penalty goal on the 18th minute.
On the 21st minute, from a simple ball from a scrum, Bournemouth’s Scott Chislett powered over the line to increase the Bournemouth lead to 15-5. Stevenson improved the score to 17-5.
On the 36th minute, Chinnor failed to control a scrum in front of their posts. From the resultant turnover scrum, the ball was passed to Dan Pollard who skipped over for Bournemouth’s third try. Stevenson again converted to improve the home lead to 24-5 at halftime.
Just four minutes after the restart, Chinnor replaced Ian Stock with Joe Winpenny and Sam Stoop with Huw Morgan. The first try of the second half came on the 52nd minute courtesy of a Chinnor pushover try with Joe Kava touching down for the visitors to reduce Bournemouth’s lead to 24-10. 5 minutes later, after a period of pressure from Bournemouth in the Chinnor corner, a grubber kick allowed Dunkerley to dot down for Bournemouth’s bonus point try. Stevenson again converted to increase the lead to 31-10.
Chinnor then had a mini revival with two tries in quick succession. The first was from Matt Goode which was converted by Colver with Cathcart having left the field. The second came from Tristan Corpe, after turnover ball in the Chinnor 22 allowed a breakout and long kick downfield from Leo Fielding. Chinnor had now closed the gap to 31-22.
It then all went wrong for Chinnor. Straight from the restart, Chinnor conceded a soft try with Featherstone collecting the ball and cantering unopposed over the line for Bournemouth’s fifth try. Amazingly, Stevenson failed with the conversion rattling the upright instead, leaving the score at 36-22. Chinnor looked certain to be scoring in the corner when the ball squirted out and was collected by Hardcastle who ran the length of the pitch to score Bournemouth’s final try of the day.
With 5 minutes to go, Chinnor were not quite out of it. A line out from a penalty kick resulted in quick ball to Colver in the centre who burst over to score a bonus point try for Chinnor. Converting his own try, Colver finished the match for a 41-29 victory to Bournemouth.
Solid work from the Bournemouth pack underpinned much of the good work leading to most of the Bournemouth scores. Stevenson was the puppet master conducting the game with intelligent direction and masterly kicking. The best team clearly won.
Chinnor will be annoyed with their defensive frailties and will rue giving away two very soft tries which might otherwise made the contest much closer. Former Chinnor youth player, Jordan Wood, on his full debut caught the eye with his work rate. Joe Pickett had a good game and the lineout functioned well.
