The Royals achieved their first win of the season, in their second game, with a visit to North East Worcestershire Ravens, based at Kings Norton. Fielding a mixture of youth experience in a full squad of 18, the first half was a back-and-forth affair, and the Royals had an 8-point lead going into half time thanks to tries from K. Jones, Blunt, C. Anderson and F. Anderson - all converted by Rufus Jones. The second half started in startling fashion, with Unsworth, Slater and R. Jones grabbing early tries, before Ravens struck back with 3 of their own. Royals saw out the game with 2 further scores as Harbury youngster Finn Anderson grabbed his second on debut, and Benny Nuttall finished proceedings by crashing over from at least 40m out. MOTM went to Cedric Anderson who impressed defensively in a game in which the attacks were on top, whilst DOTD was awarded to coach Ash Howlett, who defied his experience with an incorrect play the ball!

It was good to see a mixture of Union and League players with first team hooker Lachlan McKenzie turning out along with youngsters Marcus Russell, Bill Calder, Harry Blunt, Harry Unsworth and Doug Smith. Royals fixtures coming up are -

20 Jun - Staffordshire Quantums (H)
04 Jul - N Midlands Knights (A)
11 Jul - Nottingham Outlaws (A)
18 Jul – Peterborough (H)
25 Jul - NE Worcestershire Ravens (H)

Our physio, Hayley White, is taking part in the Great North Run, on 12 September in support of motor neurone disease and then in the Cardiff half-marathon on 4th October in memory of little Avi, one of her closest friends who passed-on in May last year. If you would like to support Hayley in her very worthwhile efforts you can do so by going into the link below.

https://www.justgiving.com/user-account/fundraising

RIP - John Wheildon’s funeral is on Friday 26 June at 2pm at Banbury Crematorium. Family flowers and donations to heart charity

Neil Hubbard’s funeral is the same day, 26 June, at Oakley Wood Crematorium at 10.30 and afterwards at the Club

Events coming up are

• Centenary Golf Tournament on Wednesday 24 June, organised by Pete Forrest at Leamington Whitnash. Entry fee is £65 including bacon bap on arrival and dinner afterwards. Contact email peteaforrest@hotmail.com

• The next Centenary event after the golf, will be our own version of it’s a Knock Out which will be held on Saturday 11 July from 1.30 . It is open to the whole club and we are hoping that as many parts of our “family” as possible will be represented. Teams will be of 6-10 people with a minimum age of 15 and no maximum limit! Entry fee is £10 per person. To enter - contact John Brear on 0775 411373 or Lucy Ramsbottom on 07904 105584

• We have an allocation of tickets for the Nations Championship games in November - against Australia on 8th and New Zealand on 21st. The application form is attached

The AGM is on 29 July, which is hopefully in your diary. Papers will be circulated in the next week or two

Johnlizlyons@btopenworld.com