South West Division 1

Chinnor rediscovered the art of try-scoring when they crossed Dings Crusaders line four times in their highly competitive 26-13 victory at Kingsey Road.

With Ben Thompson, Paul Hennessy and Charlie Oyebade all unavailable for Saturday's clash, Louw Kruger moved back to fly-half, Dave Cook came in on the wing and Lloyd Matchett moved to No 8.

Chinnor also welcomed back their influential lock Du Toit Serdyn.

It was soon evident that Dings were intent on playing in an aggressive, intimidatory manner.

The game was already simmering when the Bristol-based visitors opened the scoring with a penalty goal by fly half Mark Woodrow.

There was then an ugly brawl which resulted in Gary James, the Dings centre, being yellow-carded.

The Dings tight head was rather fortunate to still be on the park as he appeared to be the instigator of many of the unsavoury incidents.

Chinnor refused to buckle and to the delight of the large crowd, Alan Cawston crashed over under the posts after the home side took a tapped penalty from yet another Dings indiscretion. Kruger added the conversion.

Five minutes later, Paul Kelly scored from a rolling maul. Chinnor were capitalising on Dings being reduced to 14 men in this ten-minute period.

Another try by Kelly, who supported a Chinnor break through the middle and surprised the covering defence with a fine turn of speed, stretched the home side's lead, Kruger adding the extra points

However, a Woodrow penalty for Dings, on the stroke of half-time, gave an interval score of 19-6.

The second half was unrelenting in its competitiveness.

Kruger was off target with two penalty attempts before Matchett picked up from the back of a scrum some 20 metres from the line to burst through two tackles.

Using his height, he stretched over the line to score a try near the posts, Kruger's conversion making it 26-6.

Dings lived up to their reputation for possessing a never-say-die spirit as Davies scored wide out, Woodrow converting.

With Serdyn being sin-binned straight from the restart for tackling a man while still in the air, Chinnor were now under the cosh as Dings piled on the pressure.

Only determined defence kept them at bay and Chinnor were a tired but elated side at the final whistle.