Rugby Lions secured their third away win of the season with a thoroughly professional first half performance with the backs running in four tries to secure the extra bonus point.

Rugby’s impressive bench consisted of James Hadfield, Matt Price, Karl Braband, Matt Goode and Tom Harris, with Lloyd Warner starting in the centre, and Dave Campton partnering Tom Cheney in the second row.

Lions opened the scoring in the second minute when James Hawken slotted a long-range penalty after Chinnor were penalised for going to ground. The home side responded well and tied the scores soon after with a penalty by Hewitt when Lion’s backs were deemed to be offside.

Chinnor won another penalty and opted for a quick tap. William Neale made the tackle, but was penalised for not retreating ten metres. The referee deemed that this warranted a yellow card, and Neale was harshly banished to the sin-bin for ten minutes.

Despite being a man short, it was Lions who were dominating, and Hawken soon restored Rugby’s lead with another penalty when the home side were caught offside.

Harry Owens made good use of the wind advantage with a long clearance kick deep into Chinnor territory, and then produced a lovely inside pass to Warner who sliced through for a try under the posts. Hawken converted for a 13-3 lead.

Owens then made a decisive break on halfway and fed Warner for his second try, which was again converted by Hawken. Having made the decision to card Neale, the referee presumably felt it necessary to even things up, and a Chinnor forward was despatched to the bin for offside at a ruck - another harsh decision.

After some typically abrasive play from Stuart Riding (who was at number eight in the absence of Shaun Brady) the ball was spun wide and Phil Reed used his speed and strength to touch down under the uprights. With the successful conversion, Lion’s were out of sight at 30-3 with eight minutes of the half remaining.

With Chinnor defending deep into their own twenty two, a clearance kick found James Hawken on halfway. His strength got him past one tackler, before drawing two more and feeding Ade Hales on the right. Chinnor made the mistake of showing him space out wide, and Ade is not one to spurn those opportunities. He flew down the line before cutting inside to touch down under the posts and claim the four-try bonus point. Hawken again converted and the contest was effectively over.

With Rugby facing the wind in the second period, and understandably taking their foot off the pedal, the remainder of the match was more even territorially, although Rugby always looked the more likely to score. They created two or three clear chances for more tries, but it was not to be, and no points were scored at all for either side. Despite their lowly position in the league, Chinnor do not generally concede too many points – only London Scottish and Ealing have scored more – 45 and 46 respectively, so Lion’s players can be very satisfied with this performance.

It is difficult to choose a man of the match, but Dave Campton, Harry Owens and Lloyd Warner all had excellent games.