Clifton pick up first away win of 2014

Our Director of Rugby Darren Lloyd breathed a sigh of relief when we gained our first away victory since last September.

After 9 successive away defeats we gained a deserved victory over Chinnor in this rescheduled game originally postponed from the previous.

Last season when we visited Chinnor they introduced to the crowd their Director of Rugby Craig Chalmers but his stay was short lived.

This season John Vaughan has just down from the role of Director of Rugby due to work commitments but he has been replaced during this week by former Harlequins and Caerphilly hooker Matt Williams who has also played age group rugby for England
He was forced to retire from playing at the age of 21 and has since held coaching roles at Leamington RFC, Bracknell RFC, Barking RFC and more recently Gravesend RFC who disposed of his services last month.

It is a new look Chinnor side we face today as in the last week they have recruited Michal Kruzycki a 6ft 8 ins Polish international lock, Ricky Cano former England under 20 prop from Hartpury, No 8 Ledua Jope who has represented the Army and is from Fiji and flanker Arran James Nichols from Barking. These four are included in their match day squad all of whom in their first appearance in front of Matt will be keen to impress.

Darren’s match day squad included only four players aged twenty five or above with both props having yet to reach their twentieth birthdays. We also welcome back Sam Harrison to the squad having missed the majority of the season recovering from a broken ankle.

The Chinnor ground is sited on an exposed plateau with a slight slope from one end to the other. For this game there was strong and cold wind which blew down the slope and made playing conditions difficult. We had first use of the wind.

Chinnor were keen to turn the game into an arm wrestle and tested our pack throughout with their driving. Darren was pleased with the way our forwards inspired by skipper Paul Fincken dealt with this physical approach. Also impressive was the quality of the defence when the home side put us under considerable pressure.

Fly half Charlie Foley made light of the conditions with some excellent place kicking scoring 18 individual points in total

We had the better of the early exchanges but could not breach the home defence, Our reward came when Charlie landed two penalties during the opening ten minutes.

The home sides first serious attack came at the end of the first quarter when their pack drove up the left hand touch line and eventually they drove over the line with prop Joe Pickett touching down.

Keeping it in the front row Cano crossed after an explosive run in the loose for a debut try which put his side in front.

Chinnor’ s lead was short-lived and within five minutes some inter passing down the touch line ended with winger Jordan Kelly squeezing in at the corner.

From the restart we took play into their half and an excellent break from Foley enabled him to score under the posts which gave him an easy conversion. More was to come and in the first action of the second half he landed a penalty.

Territorially the home side had the upper hand in the second half but we looked dangerous with ball in hand with centre Nick Carpenter looking very sharp and finding a number of gaps in the midfield Chinnor defence,

We lost Henry Mace to the sin bin and the home side took advantage of the extra man when centre Leo Fielding burst down the blind side of a maul to score.

We struck back when prop Ellis Genge who is making a habit in scoring from distance broke away from a maul to race forty meters for a try converted by Foley.

Chinnor struck back with ten minutes when fly half Will Millett found his way through to score under the posts. His conversion narrowed the gap to six points.

Our hearts were in our mouth’s when minutes later when he appeared to repeat the score but thankfully the referees whistle blew for a scrum.

Character was shown as we were put under great pressure in the final stages but our defence held firm until the final whistle blew and with a sigh of relief our disappointing away run had come to an end.

Chinnor take both a try bonus and a losing bonus point which leaves them on forty nine points which is level with Dings.

At this moment in time Exmouth and Bournemouth are twenty points adrift at the foot of the table but the final relegation spot could be between Dings and the six clubs between them.

Darren believes it is still possible for us to reach the playoff spot but we would have to take maximum points from our remaining games and rely on the sides around us losing their way.

It could all come down to our final game Canterbury?