James Walter starred with two touchdowns as Oxford Saints opened the campaign with an 18-6 win over Torbay Trojans at Oxford RFC.

Following a league restructure, Saints are in Division 2 of the Southern Conference West this year.

And they enjoyed the perfect beginning to the season by claiming maximum points in front of a crowd of more than 100.

After a minute’s silence had been observed for former Saints general manager Roger Hedges, who died in 2007, both sides struggled to find their rhythm in the face of a strong wind.

And it wasn’t until the first drive of the second quarter that the breakthrough came with Saints’ march upfield capped off by running back Kevin Brooks scoring a four-yard touchdown run.

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With the kick missed, Oxford led 6-0.

Possession changed frequently in the second quarter, and a break-out run by Torbay took them close to the red zone, but Saints held firm.

In the third quarter, running back Walter terrorised the Torbay defence with aggressive and powerful running.

He scored on a ten-yard run and smashed a defender into the endzone as he gave Oxford a 12-0 lead, with the conversion again off target.

Torquay hit back with a good drive down the field, and they got onto the scoresheet to make it 12-6.

It sparked Saints into action in the final quarter and new quarterback Ben Denton led another strong drive, but was faced with a fourth-down situation.

A pass to tight-end Laurent Antoine was then completed for a ten-yard gain and a first down, before Walter charged the ball into the endzone from five yards to make it 18-6.

It capped a man-of-the-match performance from the running back, which saw him also complete 18 carries for 157 rushing yards.

That was more yardage than Trojans managed to gain overall.

Saints’ defence remained strong and continued to pressure the Torbay quarterback, who suffered several big hits at the hands of lively linebackers Luke Fry and Calvin Holmes.

New recruit Denton said: “The first game of any campaign is always tricky, so despite not playing to our full potential it is good to get our play-off push under way.”