Report by Rob Kershaw / Photography by David Cunningham
After a week away from National League Rugby action, it is time for the third and fourth tier to get back underway this weekend.
Albion return to an away fixture at Chinnor this weekend, with a 446-mile round trip on the cards for the Ocean City side.
Albion come off the back of a win over Esher in their second home game of the campaign, overcoming the Surrey-based side 45-29 in a high-scoring game, quintessential of both teams’ respective seasons so far.
That followed a win on the road over the Taunton Titans, and sandwiched in between were close-fought defeats at the hands of Sale and Cinderford.
This has been a promising start to the season for Damian Welch’s side, who are also buoyed by the fact that improvements are there to be made as they push to continue what has been an already significantly better start than last year.
Chinnor have one win of their own against Birmingham Moseley, but as has been the story with most of the teams further down the order, their performances, their stubbornness and their perennial ability to get points on the board makes them another stern challenge.
Albion won 41-36 in a cracking encounter in November last year, before Chinnor arrived at Brickfields and took a 19-12 win towards the back end of the season.
Travel:
It is a near four-hour trip up the A38, the M5 and the M4 to get to Oxfordshire on Saturday morning, before taking to the A34, the A40 and the A418 through to Kingsey Road.
Seats are still available on the supporters’ coach, just email albitravel@gmail.com for more info!
Team News:
Damian has made four changes to the starting line-up ahead of the weekend, with Jamie Salter, Tom Putt, Jeremy To’a and Oskar White coming back in.
Here is Damo’s squad selection for Saturday:
We return home on Saturday 22nd October for our match against Hull RUFC.
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