Banbury Wanderers Win Increases Survival Hopes !

Banbury Wanderers battle to superb win. A Richard Jeyes hat-trick helped the Wanderers to a 35-0 victory.

Wadworth 6X Berks, Bucks & Oxon 3 League

Bodicote Park - Saturday 20th January 2018

Match report by Richard Jeyes

On a bitterly cold January afternoon both teams lined up for a match that was critically important to both sides and a win for Abbey would surely confirm the Wanderers to relegation with only 4 games to go and an 11 point gap.

The match kicked off and the Wanderers dominated from the off, with the snowy conditions the forwards kept the ball tight and were determined to force their way through a very stubborn Abbey defence, Dan Button, Chris Bamber and Luke Hallam-Evans all made hard yards but the game was being played in the middle of the park without many rewards for all of the Wanderers effort.

Halfway through the first half the breakthrough came with concerted effort deep inside the Abbey half, the ball was shipped wide and a powerful run from James Bowen touched down for the first try of the afternoon

A few minutes later Josh Paroussis made it 10-0 to the Wanderers with a clinical score to the right of the posts and it appeared the flood gates might open however Abbey did not give up and continued their very dogged defence, and just before half time the Wanderers lost the influential Bamber to an ankle injury which was later confirmed as broken, this lead to a re shuffle of the pack but the Wanderers continued to dominate the scrum and won several against the head.

HT Wanderers 10 – 0 Abbey

The second half started in much the same way as the first had ended with the Wanderers clearly trying to kill off the game from the off, pushing deep into the Abbey half and after concerted forward play captain Richard Jeyes picked up from the back of the ruck and powered over under the posts.

The Wanderers sensed blood and continued to dominate up front allowing Luke Andrews to go over. The Wanderers kept the pressure up and fly half Gareth Davis made a good attacking kick leading to an Abbey line out only 7 metres out from their own line, from the resulting line out which was not secured by the Abbey jumper, the ball fell into the waiting hands of Richard Jeyes who lead the dynamic Wanderers pack towards the line and put the ball down for his second try of the afternoon.

Abbey were starting to tire and the Wanderers capitalised on this leading to a wider game bringing the backs into the matchmore and more, even the injury to scrum half Steve Nicklin didn’t disrupt the Wanderers with debutants Dave Burke and John Scales coming on to allow a re-shuffle in the back line.

The Wanderers then continued wave after wave of attack on the Abbey line and after great interplay between forwards and backs Chris Brady was able to run in a fantastic try under the post which clearly meant much to him.

As the game neared the end, the Wanderers did not give up and continued to harry the Abbey defence and after quick thinking from Oscar Gudge he was brought down 4 metres out and Jeyes picked up the ball from the ruck and powered over for his hat trick. That was to be the final play of the game and despite the score Abbey had made the game very tough for the Wanderers but the game management from the Wanderers had been very impressive. The Wanderers are now only 2 points behind Abbey with survival very much in their own hands.

FT Wanderers 35 - 0 Abbey
Man of the match for his solid effort throughout was lock Dan Button.