Rugby: Tolich sends Chinnor top

From the archive, first published Tuesday 21st Feb 2006.

South West 1: Rewi Tolich scored a hat-trick as Chinnor surged back to the top of the table with a 43-3 victory at Clevedon.

The Kiwi winger was in fine form in a game that was switched to a local school after Clevedon's pitch was waterlogged.

With promotion rivals Clifton and Weston-super-Mare drawing 15-15 in Bristol, Chinnor lead the division by a point.

The new venue was hardly ideal, but both sides adapted well to the conditions.

Clevedon opened the scoring with a well-struck penalty in the fifth minute from fly half Dan Hawkes.

Chinnor full back James Hewitt equalised with a penalty and converted Tolich's first try after Andy Milburn had gone close.

Their second score came when centre Sam Soane broke the defence and fed winger Jamie Hiscock, who sprinted 30 metres to touch down in the corner.

Hewitt's conversion made it 14-3 at the break and Chinnor resumed with No 8 Raakai Maxwell tearing into the Clevedon pack.

With most of the play taking place in Clevedon territory, Tolich again joined himself the forward thrusts to gain two more tries.

With Hewitt adding conversions to both of these efforts, Chinnor were well and truly in the driving seat.

Two fine individual tries, one from replacement Richard Williams and the other from Matt Buckley, plus another Hewitt conversion, completed the scoring.

Andy Henley was Oxford Harlequins' hero turned villain as they crashed to a 49-5 loss at Reading Abbey.

The centre, who bagged a treble last week, was Quins only scorer on Saturday and capped a disappointing team display by being red-carded in the second half.

Quins conceded a try on five minutes.

Two minutes later flanker Jamie Cope was yellow-carded and they soon conceded a push-over try.

Quins weathered the storm and came into the game more with their back row of Cope, Paddy Soper and Dan Bonanno keeping a tight rein on the Abbey attacks.

Centre Charlie Mawle almost broke through, while prop Tom Chapman and hooker Simon Chadbone made some charging runs.

Two penalties put Abbey 16-0 up and they led 28-0 at the break thanks to two more tries and a conversion.

A penalty try saw Quins ring the changes as Anthony Cope switched to scrum half, Sam Stoop slotted in at No 10 and Ben Cottenden came on at full back.

A breakaway score put Abbey 42-0 up before Henley crossed over in the corner after 65 minutes.

Another late try meant the scoreline flattered Abbey, but this was a wake-up call for Quins after some good performances.

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