A drop goal five minutes from time by Adam Smith was enough to give Chipping Norton a 20-17 local derby victory over Witney in Southern Counties North at Greystones.

The turning point was the loss of two Witney players to the sin-bin which gave the home side the initiative.

Witney dominated the opening exchanges, with Charlie Bennett a real threat in the lineouts.

But it was Chippy who broke the deadlock with an uncon verted try from Sam Townsend.

A George Bibby penalty reduced the deficit and then James Lamb’s try, converted by Bibby, put the visitors in control.

Chippy broke out of defence and levelled the scores with a long range try from Ian Waldron to make it all square at the break.

With the elements in their favour, Witney put the Chippy line under seige and winger Carl Strutt scored in the corner. Bibby converted.

Will Worrall was sin-binned and Bennett soon followed, which left Witney’s 13 men with a mountain to climb.

They withstood strong pressure until Townsend added his second try, converted by Smith, to level the scores, and Smith’s classy drop goal sealed the points.

Grove saw off Beaconsfield 29-20 despite being without five first-choice players through injury.

Two soft tries, one converted, after a couple of handling errors put Grove on the back foot.

However, with centre pairing Ben Law and Grant Morris creating havoc, it was only a matter of time before Grove put some points on the board.

Jamie Burns and Zach Grant went in for tries, both converted by Roger Sevier, but Grove suffered a setback when hooker Steve Dixey was red-carded for an alleged punch.

Scrum half Johnny Needelkoff had to leave the field with a foot injury, but after a quick reshuffle, Grove applied more pressure, resulting in five penalties from Sevier.

Beaconsfield could only manage a drop goal and a try in the last minutes of the game.

Bicester proved no match for high-riding Marlow, going down to an emphatic 57-0 defeat away to the Bucks club.

The visitors fielded a number of their younger players, including scrum half Craig Smith and debutant winger James Cookson, but they had little chance to shine.

Marlow dominated in the tight, and Bicester lost their own scrum ball no fewer than six times in the first half alone.

The wealth of possession meant the home backs were able to run in seven of the nine tries scored.

Bicester didn’t help their cause with a string of errors, but they defended bravely to the end.