National 3 South West

LIAM Gilbert marked his captaincy debut with two tries and an outstanding display as Chinnor romped to a 50-3 victory at Bridgwater & Albion.

Flanker Gilbert, who was filling in for regular skipper Joe Winpenny (work commitments), impressed in Chinnor’s seven-try display, which took them to second spot.

Sam Osborne put Bridgwater ahead with a penalty, but Chinnor fly half James Cathcart replied in kind on ten minutes.

Chinnor full back Mark Chase lost the ball as he looked to ground it for the opening try.

However, the resulting scrum saw Bridgwater shoved off their own ball, with Chinnor centre Sam Stoop scooting over and Cathcart converting.

Another powerful scrum, against the head allowed Gilbert a pushover try, Cathcart converting.

Bridgwater were held up before Chinnor struck again, this time through prop Ian Stock, who collected Tristan Corpe’s grubber kick.

Cathcart converted for a 24-3 half-time lead and did the same after Gilbert gathered the restart kick and powerfully set up Chase for try No 4.

Centre Henry Colver came on for an assured debut, while more good work from the pack enabled scrum half Frank Jones to score his first Chinnor try on 52 minutes, converted by Cathcart.

The visitors had to defend well, but finished strongly, with Gilbert bagging a deserved second try and Cathcart converting.

Wing Pip Seymour gathered his own chip for the final try, with Cathcart somehow missing the conversion from in front of the posts.

Oxford Harlequins suffered a 78-8 hammering at Newton Abbot.

Centre Alex Moore got the hosts up and running on four minutes, followed by another from prop Nick Hammond, full back Josh Smith converting both tries.

Quins fly half Joey Todd steadied the ship with a penalty, having missed an earlier attempt.

Home flanker Peter Mortimore and lock Mark Templeman kept the tries flowing, Smith converting the former.

Quins lost hooker Matt Edney to a head injury, with Simon Chadbone moving across and prop Ollie Barlow coming on.

It was 38-3 at half-time thanks to tries from centre Steve Ward, converted by Smith, and wing Matt Dayment, although Abbot had Templeman yellow-carded.

Luke Brown replaced injured flanker Ramen Farhani at half-time, but Quins could not stem the tide as Smith added a brace of converted tries.

Mortimore was sin-binned before No 8 Julian Watkins drove over for Quins’ consolation try on his debut.

No 8 Brett Stroud was handed Abbot’s third yellow card on 70 minutes, but late tries from Mortimore (2), Moore and Jake Monnington, all converted by Smith, completed a thoroughly miserable day for the visitors.