OXFORD University, playing their first game for six weeks, lacked match sharpness and lost to a highly competitive Richmond second string at Iffley Road last night.

The Dark Blues were understandably rusty after their long lay-off following their Varsity Match defeat at Twickenham and faded in the last quarter.

Competing well up front, Oxford had the better of the first half but failed to turn their territorial advantage into points. Richard Governey missed two kickable penalties, while several wrong options left them 5-0 down at the break.

Richmond's try came from scrum half Richard Neville after ten minutes.

When centre Simon Brocklehurst scored a try and former Bath fly half Richard Butland kicked both a conversion and a penalty, Richmond looked like running away with it at 15-0 ahead after an hour.

But Oxford stormed back with two tries in four minutes. First, full back Nathan Ashley, their best player, burst on to Kurt Shuman's short pass to score beneath the posts, and then skipper Dave Kelaher, with a jinking run, eluded most of the Richmond pack to touch down.

Governey added one conversion and suddenly the Blues were only 15-12 down.

But Richmond, for whom Oxford winger Simon Danielli made several dangerous runs, raised their tempo and scored further tries from Ed Hallett - son of the club's chief executive, Tony - and lock Andrew Sheridan.

Butland converted both to give the Reading-based club a slightly flattering margin of victory.

Story date: Thursday 28 January

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.