A bit of rain in the morning softened the pitch up nicely for what was expected to be a hard afternoon on the deck at local rivals Beaconsfield Bandits. Was this going to be daylight robbery or were the Chiltern Rangers going to ride off with the spoils ?

This was the first meeting of the two club’s 3XV sides for a long time having avoided each other in different league competitions for at least a decade, but the sense of rivalry was still there on the day. Historically Beaconsfield RFC was spawned from Chiltern RFC back in the 1950s and have always been keen to keep up and overtake us like a competitive younger sibling. The sense of rivalry was further increased with the recent news that Beaconsfield have been awarded the County Cup for their efforts in the community during the pandemic rather than for their prowess on the pitch, the cup for which we are the retaining holders. Enough of the history lesson and on to the match !

Gibo arrived first with the kit and his special bag of cones and organised an extensive warm up and skills session pre-match. With calm words and a clear game plan , the boys were ready.

There were no points in the first 15 minutes as both sides sized each other up and although Beaconsfield had a weight advantage in the scrum it was an even contest with both sides having their good and bad set pieces. It was the same in the lineout, both teams were competing relentlessly and this resulted in things being quite messy at times.

Chiltern’s tackling was immense though and the old Rugby adage states that the team that tackles best normally wins and the 3XV were certainly putting in the tackles. The back row in particular kept Beaconsfield from making any sort of meaningful yards and they had support from our centres and back 3 bringing down some big players with good old fashioned tackling around the ankles.

Jamie Gordon broke the deadlock with a pressure relieving try under the posts after 20 minutes, he had threatened a couple of times out wide but through persistence eventually crossed the white line.

Fly Half Phil John kicked the conversion and also kicked a couple of crucial long range penalties to keep Chiltern out of danger as Beaconsfield responded with an unconverted try and a lot of aggression. With 10 minutes to go the game was still there to be won and lost, but Alex Bower broke through the Beaconsfield defence to score late on under the posts to secure the win, Beaconsfield making the mistake of not playing to the referee's whistle.

Harry Doyle was awarded man of the match for his tireless performance at 6 , tackling , carrying , linking and along with Pete Porter and Lewis Culverhouse were our main ball carriers, breaking tackles and making yards.
In the backs Phil John led the line well and kicked beautifully from hand and from the tee. Jamie Gordon was a constant threat from fullback , joining the line at pace and winning the defensive chases. Luke Donnebaum led the team by example and kept the players fighting for everything in an attritional forwards game.

A big thankyou to Chris Smith who turned up to run the touchline for us, and to Stan Griffiths who came to support. Along with our Team Manager David Crimp the 3XV had some of the club’s most esteemed Senior members on the touchline willing us on and giving the team the sense of occasion and importance of the match result.

The 3XV have a break week coming up before they take on the Mount in the legendary ‘Prison’ game on 30th October.