Sat 2 Oct 2004
Wallingford 20 Oxford 0 (02.10.04)
The home side continued their run of good league form despite having to make several changes to the side due to the mounting injury problems. The club welcomed back South African scrum half Derek VILJOEN who had missed the last 3 games due to injury but was still without centre Johnny COLLET so Mike CHAPMAN made his First XV League debut. In a match they controlled from start to finish Wallingford eventually ran out fairly comfortable victors in this local derby fixture and managed to keep a clean sheet for the second week running.
Despite an abundance of territory and possession the side was unable to capitalise on the steady stream of possession provided by their forwards, in particular second row Shaun BAILEY who had an outstanding game in the line out. Finally after wasting two or three glorious try scoring opportunities Wallingford took the lead on the half hour mark when skipper and fly half Olli HENDERSON went through a half gap thirty yards out and managed to outstrip the Oxford defence to score under the posts for a try which he then converted. Shortly afterwards the pressure being exerted by the Wallingford pack began to tell and the visitors conceded a penalty on their own 22 metre line which HENDERSON successfully kicked to give the home side a 10- nil lead at half time. Wallingford started the second half very much as they had finished the first with the lion’s share of the possession and territory but again struggled to make that final pass to find the score that would have put the game beyond Oxford. However with fifteen minutes to go Oxford infringed at a ruck and from the resulting penalty HENDERSON kicked a penalty. In the last five minutes the visitors had their best spell of the afternoon and threw everything at the home side but a floated pass in the centres was intercepted by full back Henry VENNERS. The full back then ran fully 80 metres to score under the Oxford posts for a try which was again converted by HENDERSON and this effectively killed off any slight hope that Oxford had of snatching victory.
With Milton Keynes losing at home this victory lifts the side up to third in the league and hopefully
the next couple of weeks will see one or two of the regulars returning to action from injury.
