National Two South

Taunton Titans 15 Chinnor 26

AFTER taking Bishop’s Stortford home record last week, the Titans lost their own home record in emphatic fashion, going down four tries to two against a disciplined and energetic Chinnor side, writes Keith Brooking.

Freddie Fraser and Sam Prior crossed for Titans' tries, while Gary Kingdom kicked five points - but the visitors touched down twice in each half to seal a bonus-point win at Hyde Park.

With a strong wind blowing toward the motorway and the pitch very soft, it was the visitors with the wind at their backs who started the brightest. After a couple of lineouts in the Titans 22 and a couple of drives to the line, it was decided after consultation, that second row Ben Manning did ground the ball.

Fly-half Sam Angell kicked the difficult conversion from out wide to give Chinnor a well-deserved 7-0 lead.

The Titans had chances of their own, but every time they got any momentum they either lost the ball, gave a penalty away or lost the lineout in the Chinnor 22.

It was another Titans mistake that lead to Chinnor’s second try.

A charged down kick was gathered and after several phases and drives towards the Titans line, Junior Fatialofa showed he still has his dancing feet to jink over under the posts. The simple conversion was added by Angell for a 14-0 lead.

The Titans then got the next score when centre Freddie Fraser charged down a kick, hacked it on and won the race to touch down, to make the half time score 5-14.

The second half started well for the Titans, with a penalty kicked by Gary Kingdom, but then the home side fell into the same pattern as the first half - giving away silly penalties and losing the ball.

On the flip side, Chinnor kept to the game plan of the second half and controlled proceedings well.

The Titans soon took the lead for the first time in the match, with a converted try scored by Sam Prior giving them a slender 15-14 advantage. However, Chinnor hit back, thanks mainly to Taunton’s mistakes, which opened the opportunities for them to score two more tries through winger Oscar Heath and replacement prop Jamie Townsend, with Angell converting the last.

Titans head coach, Tony Yapp said afterwards: “We are hugely disappointed with that performance.

"After beating Bishop’s last week and picking up five points, to then lose at home is disappointing.

"Take nothing away from Chinnor they were very organised, very dogged and they worked themselves for the 80 minutes, which is something we cannot say about ourselves.

"There was a lot of things in that performance that weren’t good enough.

"We will have to work hard this week in training to put those things right, but most of all the attitude of the players will need to be right otherwise next weekend against the league leaders will be a very long afternoon.”

Taunton Titans: Kingdom (Capt), Mason, Brown (Claxton 47), Fraser, O’Meara, East, Webb, Chapman (Prior 40), Vakalutukali (Fleming 64), Lee, Hales (Chapman 47 – 51), Harvey (Chapman 53), Claydon (Caulfield 40), Gatford (Frost 58), Woolmore.