Bourns’ forward dominance earns victory over Banbury

Bournville 54 Banbury 17

Bournville made it six straight home wins despite gifting Banbury a 14 points lead in a frenetic and sometimes chaotic contest at Avery Fields.

There were thrills and spills a plenty and seven yellow cards – three to Banbury in the first-half and four to Bourns in the second – with Bourns only taking the lead for the first time with the final play of the first-half.

Bourns scored eight tries – all but the last converted by Jacob Fewtrell – with seven of them coming from forwards with only a breakaway effort from scrum-half Reiss Price breaking the pack’s monopoly.

Apart from the first 15 minutes, when Banbury left wing Charlie Cranley scored two tries, Bourns were in command with the front-row outstanding in the set pieces and lock Ollie Morris impressing in his first start having been called up as a late replacement for Kieran Henderson who was late withdrawal through illness.

Banbury played a full part in the entertainment and will have headed back down the M40 wondering how they failed to score any points in the second-half when Bourns twice went down to 13 men. But, just as they had at Lutterworth seven days earlier, Bournville defended heroically even though were stretched at times and made the most of their own attacking opportunities with clinical finishing.

Some of the gloss was taken off the win by the departure of centre Josh Bloomfield early in the second-half with a dislocated right shoulder. Bloomfield missed much of last season with an injury to the same shoulder which required major surgery but the club’s medical team managed to pop the shoulder back in this time and the hopes are that he will be back playing again in the New Year.

Otherwise the slow start was the only other concern but, once they had sparked into life, Bourns produced some excellent rugby based around a dominant pack and aggressive defence.

Clarkson McLeod topped and tailed the try scoring, driving over from close-range for the first after 22 minutes which was closely followed by a pushover effort from Jonjo Fanning which, with Fewtrell’s conversion, levelled the scored at 14-14.

But those were the only points Bourns scored in a nine minutes period when Banbury had two men in the sin bin and it was the Oxfordshire side who regained the lead with a penalty from Dan Hale on the half hour.

Banbury received a third yellow card just before the break and Bourns made their numerical advantage count this time with Ben Rhodes being driven over for another score from the pack.

Loosehead Danny Griffin made at full house of tries for the front-row when he crossed five minutes into the second-half to secure the try bonus point. Fanning and Rhodes each scored their second tries before Bloomfield’s injury and yellow cards for Harry Dawson, Adam Collingwood and Fanning disrupted the flow of the game.

Bournville had to absorb plenty of pressure in a 20 minute period in which Banbury threw everything at them, but the defence held firm.

They were also quick to turn defence into attack with Price crossing from long-range then McLeod taking the chance to show his paces by galloping clear at the end to round off another swift counter-attack and bring up a half-century of points for the third time this season.

*Bournville Blues made it back-to-back wins in Counties Two Midlands West (East) with a dominant 47-5 success at Coventry Welsh.