It was another five points for Nick Easter’s Chinnor at Grantchester Road as they turned the screw at half time, blowing Cambridge away after a nip-and-tuck first forty. The signs were there inside the first ten minutes as they raced into the lead, centre Sam Hanks scoring in the corner on his return to Ellgia Felds, closely followed by another from wing Toby Cousins, converted by Nathan Chamberlain, but the hosts wrestled their way back into the game and showed some of the form exhibited at Bedford last week.
Back row Ed Timpson made it two in two appearances, on his home debut as he crashed over for Cambridge’s opener, with Jamie Annand accurate off the tee. Jack Doorey-Palmer made it two, buried beneath his forwards as he finished off a driving maul. And although Tom Watson stretched the lead with the visitors third, Annand’s penalty made it a 4-point game on 40 minutes and, indeed, all to play for in the second half.
Not for the first time this season, Cambridge conceded the first try after the break, via prop Kai Owen, and another four followed after Chamberlain stretched the score with a perfunctory penalty before getting over the line himself with ease. Charles James-Carter was next over, followed by another from Chamberlain and a final flourish from James Bourton.
Easter was pleased with that second forty, saying “We’d done our homework – we respect Cambridge a lot – they have good first halves. We got two early scores which was good for us but we didn’t use it as a cushion. They got two back – Cambridge are a good side – but we went into the break four points up. The guys have very much bought into our game plan and what we’re about. We had the territorial advantage and for a change we made it tell on the scoreboard – sometimes we’re guilty of leaving points out there. We were reasonably ruthless. The conditions were prefect, as was the pitch by the way, and both sides were 100 per cent off the line out. We didn’t get dominance until the last 25 minutes and we got our rewards in the end.”
Craig Newby was considerably less happy. “We didn’t get out of the blocks. We gave them two tries early on. We were poor. We didn’t execute our plan. We were flat and quiet in the warm- up – I don’t understand why. We should have been really ‘up’ after last week at Bedford, it was a great day, we had a big crowd and we didn’t deliver. We were excellent for 15-20 minutes. But the second half was unacceptable.”
Cambridge
Currie 6, Qaniuci 5 (Green 23 6), Reweti 6, Sorrell 6 (Lumley 54 6), Caven 6, Annand 6, Bemand 6 (Dawson 64 6); Ellwood 6 (Masoe 70), Doorey-Palmer 7 (irvine0 60 6), Walker 6 (Buckely 59 6), Fulford 7, Baxter 7 (Thomas 70), Adams (C) ( McKay 60 6), Eckersley 6, Timpson 7
Chinnor
Smith 7 , Cousins 7, Hanks 7 (Passman 64 6), Bourton 7, Owsley 7, Chamberlain 8, Pascoe 7 (James-Carter 54 7); Owen 7 (Rukhadze 50 7), Thompson 7 (Walker 50 7) Bezuidenhout 7 (Hardwick 44 7), Campbell 7 (Cook 62 6), Hall, Dugmore, Stokes (Loggenberg 14 7), Rafferty 7
Scorers
Cambridge
Tries – Timpson 14, Doorey-Palmer 17
Cons – Annand 15
Pen – Annand 36
Chinnor
Tries – Hanks 3, Cousins 6, Watson 24, Owen 43, Chamberlain 59, 73 , James-Carter 69, Bourton 79
Cons – Chamberlain 7, 25, 60, 70, 74, 80
Pen – Chamberlain 48
HT 15-19 FT15-55
Attendance 1136
Referee George Selwood
STAR PLAYER Nathan Chamberlain (Chinnor)
Penalties Against – 10/9
Scrums Won 7/4
Scrums Lost 0/0
Line Outs Won 10/9
Line Outs Lost 0/0
YC 0/0