October 29, 2022
After losing their last home game to Plymouth to slip into the bottom three, Chinnor achieved their second victory of the season with a 31-22 come-back win at Taunton, with ex-Northampton Saints hooker Reece Marshall scoring 4 tries, three of which were from line-out catch and drives. This win took them up one place to 11th in the table.
Today’s visitors Sale sat in 4th place having won 5 of their 7 matches ( Moseley A 32-13, Leeds H 56-8, Plymouth A 27-24, Taunton H 31-24 & Esher H 35-21 ) with the defeats being at sides in the top 5, namely Cambridge ( 19-32 ) and Cinderford ( 26-27 ), where they were winning 26-8 at half-time before being beaten by a late penalty try.
All 6 of the previous meetings between these two sides have been home wins. The corresponding fixture last season was on the opening day of the season when Chinnor comfortably won 34-21 and there was little in the Sale performance that day to suggest they would go on to push an outstanding Caldy side all the way in the battle for the title before eventually finishing in second place. Whilst their backs had showed a lot of pace and adventure, their forwards committed far too many handling errors and they barely won a line-out. Obviously they improved in those areas over the course of the season !
The other matches at Kingsey Road ended in Chinnor’s favour, 38-31 in 2019/20 and 28-21 in 2018/19. In contrast, Chinnor have lost in all three visits to Sale’s Heywood Road and were thrashed 17-50 in the final game of last season.
On the bench today for Sale was Oskar Hirskyj-Douglas, who made 17 appearances for Chinnor in 2013/14 as a teenage back-row forward on loan from Wasps. He subsequently reinvented himself as a three-quarter and played for Loughborough Students and Bedford, before joining Sale this season.
Nine of today’s Sale squad played in last season’s match, with captain and flanker Andrew Hughes, prop Dan Birchall and number 8 Stone Priestley-Nangle making their fourth visit to Kingsey Road in Sale colours. Ex-Yorkshire Carnegie centre James Robbins was their top points scorer on 43 points, whilst hooker Josh Brown was the leading try scorer with 5, followed by ex-Rosslyn Park wing Neville Edwards.
In comparison, only 5 of the Chinnor squad played in last seasons win, and centre Will Simonds was making his home debut for the club after being released following Wasps going into administration.
On a fine autumn afternoon, the temperature at the 15.00 kick-off was an un-seasonally high of around 20 degrees but the omnipotent Chinnor breeze still brought a chill to the air.
On entering the ground, the car park contained a number of film-set wagons, which meant another episode of Midsomer Murders is being filmed in Thame.
The opening minutes of the match were pretty even. Chinnor kicked off and Sale quickly infringed near half-way. The resulting penalty failed to make much yardage, taking Chinnor to midway between the Sale 10 metre and 22 metre lines. Chinnor then conceded a penalty, Sale failed to find touch, and Chinnor’s attack ended with a knock-on on the right wing.
Chinnor won a penalty at the first scrum of the match, and lock James Down claimed the subsequent line-out to rumble towards the Sale try-line, but was stopped a few metres short. Sale were penalized at the breakdown, and Chinnor opted to take the points. Nick Smith stepped up for a kick in front of the posts, so Chinnor led 3-0 after 6 minutes.
Sale then won a penalty at the next scrum, and took play to 10 metres from the Chinnor line. Lock Bamber won the line-out but Chinnor defended well. The ball appeared to have come out of the ruck so Chinnor hooker Marshall picked up the loose ball, but the referee thought otherwise and awarded a penalty to Sale. Sale No 8 Priestley-Nangle had to helped off the field with a painful looking leg injury, and after the delay, fly-half Wilkinson had an easy kick to level the scores at 3-3 after 15 minutes.
Chinnor responded strongly and scrum-half Goodfellow’s kick from half-way bounced into touch deep inside the Sale 22. Chinnor stole the line-out and looked to move the ball wide. Unfortunately for them, Simonds’s attempted grubber kick was blocked and Sale winger Callum Morris gathered the loose ball to run unopposed for 60+ metres to score under the posts, and Wilkinson added the extras to take the score to 3-10 with 19 minutes played.
It was Chinnor’s turn to win a scrum penalty, and some back-chat from Sale was penalized 10 metres, and the home side were back 5 metres from the Sale line. The line-out was overthrown but prop McNulty managed to catch and Chinnor drove several times for the try. With a penalty advantage, the ball was moved wide and Walsh’s long pass give wing Worrall the opportunity to step inside the covering defender and over the line for Chinnor’s first try. Smith’s conversion missed so it remained 8-10 after 23 minutes.
Chinnor blind-side flanker Conor Brockschmidt raised a few chuckles as he made a mess of catching a high ball and the ball then hit his foot to go off for a line-out. Chinnor weren’t laughing a few minutes later though. Sale secured their possession, and centre James Robbins made a great break through the middle and into the Chinnor 22. Sale recycled the ball and scrum-half Matthew Bradley had the vision and the skill to look-up and execute a perfect cross-field kick with the outside of his foot to the unmarked Dixon out wide, and the full-back easily got in at the corner for an unconverted try. Sale now led 15-8 with 28 minutes on the clock.
Chinnor’s restart had to be allowed to bounce before it went 10 yards, and Sale kicked it back into the Chinnor half. Smith's attempted clearing kick was charged down, and the ball fell kindly for wing Edwards to race to the corner for his side’s second try in a minute. Again, the conversion attempt from out wide failed, but Sale now led 20-8 after 29 minutes.
Chinnor’s kicking errors continued as first Goodfellow and then Walsh kicked out on the full, although Sale failed to capitalize as their line-out was deemed to be not straight. After a couple of scrum penalties, Chinnor eventually reduced the deficit. No 8 Ryan went on a rampaging run through the middle and after the ball went through a couple of pair of hands, Hodson scythed through the Sale defence, and then passed to Worrall on the overlap to score. Another conversion was missed from close to the touch-line so Chinnor trailed 13-20 with a couple of minutes of the half left to play.
Both sides then had promising moves ended by the referee whistling for forward passes but the final score of the half went to Sale with fine handling from their backs. From a set-scrum, Wilkinson, Robbins, Morris and Dixon all combined to release Edwards to score his second try of the game and give Sale the try bonus point. Wilkinson suffered another failure from the tee, but Sale went into the interval with a 25-13 lead.
Chinnor had the better of the early stages of the second-half but the tactic of Goodfellow hoisting high-balls looked questionable as Callum Morris comfortably gathered on all three occasions. Two promising Chinnor attacks ended by conceding penalties at the break-down.
Chinnor shot themselves in the foot again in the 56 minute. Wilkinson’s clearing kick went over the head off Chinnor full-back who had to turn and retrieve. However, his attempt to find touch was charged down by Morris who was then able to dive and get a hand on the loose ball before a covering defender to claim a try for his side. This time Wilkinson was successful with the extras to take the score to 32-13, with 19 points having been gifted by Chinnor.
Chinnor’s response was for lock Curry to charge through a gap to get to with 10 metres of the try-line. Chinnor looked certain to score but knocked on inches from the line.
The errors from the home side continued. A 5 metre line-out was knocked on, a grubber kick from Walsh was blocked and Carter’s kick was charged down and went off for a line-out. A dam-buster pass was Walsh was intercepted by Hirskyj-Douglas who looked about to go clear, but fortunately for Chinnor play was brought back for their scrum. In between, Sale made their first error for a long while when Bradley’s kick went straight out of play.
A strong push saw Sale win a scrum penalty but the line-out from 5 metres was well defended by Chinnor. Sale wound down the clock by keeping play in the Chinnor 22, but with 4 minutes remaining a loose kick ahead was gathered by Smith who ran through a cluster of Sale players to take play from close to his own line to inside the Sale 22. Although the move was halted, Chinnor recovered possession, and with a 2 versus 1, Smith drew the final defender to pass to Worrall to score his third try of the game. To save time Smith dropped kicked the conversion and missed, but Chinnor still had a couple of minutes to try and score a fourth try for a bonus point.
However, the visitors had other ideas and after kicking deep into the Chinnor 22, the home side somehow lost possession at the break-down, and although the first attack was kept out, Sale moved the ball to the other side of the field where Dixon’s athletic inside pass enable Hirskyj-Douglas to score against his former side. Wilkinson’s not too difficult conversion hit the upright, so the game finished with a final score of 37-18 to Sale.
Had Chinnor not gifted 19 points to the visitors this might have been a close game, but in truth, Chinnor made far too many errors to deserve anything from the match. Their kicking was poor, some off their options taken were questionable, and they conceded too many penalties. With this result they slipped back into the bottom three.
After a bit of a sloppy start, Sale were highly efficient and their half-backs, Bradley and Wilkinson, and wing Morris all gave impressive performances. They stayed in 4th place, 8 points adrift of unbeaten leaders Rams.
Highlights : https://www.chinnor-rfc.com/videos/trylights--chinnor-v-sale-184126.html
