Chinnor 5 Richmond 21. Entertaining game in spite of mud and Basil Fawlty referee. Should have seen him fussing around at the end  when he'd reduced Mond to 13 men so had to have an uncontested scrum.

Mond dominated and it was nice to see Will Warden back for the second half.

Chinnor were one trick ponies today- they seemed to rely on getting scrum penalties and then booting it into touch for a rolling maul. Their backs were stifled today, so maybe I'm being unfair.

someone did their homework on Chinnor

Awful conditions (objective); game scarcely better (subjective). To paraphrase Admiral Beatty, "There was something wrong with our bloody team yesterday". Winter solstice; the nadir of the calendar year - and hopefully of the 19/20 season, too.

We somehow managed not to get nilled (unconverted try at 85? mins) - and stopped the visitors getting a 4T bonus. And that is all the good news. After a mild, clear morning, the wind and rains set in before KO. There are now long parallel traces in the remaining grass to show where our scrum went skating rearwards early on. Cinderford played the wind and rain much more intelligently; Albion tried to make champagne in a brown ale cesspool. This was not the crew who tweeked the Mond lion's ear a few weeks back. Even after both sides went into "away" shirts at the interval, individual players were incognito at FT.

Better brains than mine will do the technical analysis, but it seemed like New Coach Syndrome writ large to this particular punter. Too many reading from the wrong page or simply playing beyond the conditions - or the guy next to him. That's not grandstanding, just failure to focus on what's in front. There was some commendable kicking into the considerable headwind, but light years ahead of the chasers. And then it was returned with interest - to be often enough spilled. Loads of lateral movement, but precious little ahead - and most tellingly in the final third. Not rewarding viewing in the least. Bad day at the office? Seemed like the day after the works party, to be frank...

This appears overly harsh on re-reading. This squad has much more to offer, even from the levels of ability and grit shown at the RAG. Maybe you have to hit rock bottom before you can kick off and upwards.

Sorry, guys. Have a good festive break.

geralltrugby wrote: Ouch! 😳

 

That must be a record defeat for Hull Ionians. 

I cannot recall a heavier one.

 

I think you are being unfair to both Richmond and Chinnor.

 

Chinnor have a decent set of backs but outstanding defence meant that Goss, Harries, Worrall, Ryan and co hardly ever breached the gain line. Might have been different if Elder had played ?

 

Richmond were deserved winners as they were much more efficient in key areas. They won their own ball, retained possession for long periods and their defence was outstanding. The scrum half was the outstanding player on the pitch. However, it was pretty clear why they haven't earnt lots of try bonus points for a team at the top of the table. Also, just about every other team in the Division would have kicked to the corner just before half-time rather than kick the penalty at 15-0 up. The home support were pretty relieved not to be turning round 22-0 down rather than 18-0 !

 

Chinnor lost 4 line-outs from promising positions, spilt the ball in the tackle 4 times in the Richmond 22 after breaks had been made, kicked out on the full at least twice, and missed a penalty.Simply, just too many errors to win a match against quality opposition.  I think Richmond dropped the ball only once and their offloads were much better......

 

Chinnor did have the edge in the scrums which might be a worry for Richmond as in nearly all the games I've seen this season there has been parity in the scrums ( apart from DMP ). The pattern of scrum reset, scrum reset, scrum reset, penalty to Chinnor, kick for line-out, lose line-out was pretty depressing from the home point of view !

 

Agree about the ref though, I had no idea what was going on at the end ! He and his assistants also had a pretty "laissez-faire" approach to the off-side law.......