Sat 14 Sep 2019, 15:00
Wallingford travelled north-east to the pleasant town of Chesham, for the first encounter between the two sides in nearly 14 years, as the hosts looked to kick on from their near-undefeated promotion season.
In selection, Wallingford saw debut a debut for Angus Black in the front row, as well the the return from long-term injury of Tom Swainston and Sam Botting, who missed all of last season. It also saw the competitive debut for new Wallingford coach Paul 'Sully' Sullivan.
The home side started the better of the two sides, as Wallingford struggled to find any fluency in their game, as Chesham made all the early running. After Wallingford gave away penalties early doors, Chesham eventually got on the scoreboard as they used their catch and drive to good effect. Try converted.
Wallingford came back well, and despite their set-piece looking a bit rusty, got the next score, as Jackson Sayce nudged over a simple penalty.
But with Wallingford falling foul of a strict referee, and slow to adapt to the Chesham maul, the home side stretched their lead to 14-3 through another well-executed catch and drive.
Despite being far from their best, Wallingford narrowed the deficit before half time with another Sayce penalty.
Chesham were good value for their lead at half-time, but the second half saw Wallingford's fitness and experience of L7 rugby came to the fore.
After another Sayce penalty brought Wallingford to within five points, before they finally crossed the whitewash. A break down the left saw some excellent offloads from the majority of the back line, before Sam Botting crashed over in the left corner for an excellent backs try. The conversion was missed.
With the set-piece starting to settle, Wallingford started to dominate posession, with Swainston and Sayce pulling all the strings at 9 & 10.
Sayce in particular was causing the hosts trouble with his running game, and he was heavily involved in the second try, as several breaks resulted in Pete McKinley feeding his centre partner Botting for his second try. Sayce converting.
With Wallingford in the ascendency, and Chesham starting to run out of ideas, Wallingford finally closed the game out, as they worked their way into the right corner, before Swainston found McKinley with a fine angled run to touch down. Conversion missed.
This was a decent game of rugby on a fine September's afternoon. Chesham looked like a decent side, with a combative pack and some hard running backs, but Wallingford did well to stem their momentum and put in a quality second half showing to secure the win.
The victorious squad
