Wallingford won the David Charles Oxfordshire Plate when they beat Harwell 22-18 in the most exciting of finals at Bicester on Saturday.

It was a seven-try thriller, with Wallingford taking the try count 4-3.

Harwell may have been underdogs, but for the first 57 minutes until the sin-binning of centre Tom Keaton for a deliberate knock-on, they deserved their lead.

Henry Venners breaks away

Strikes against the head and control of rolling mauls saw Harwell go 13-0 up after 23 minutes with tries for Doug Bosley - later named man-of-the-match - and Mike Horton, plus a penalty from Rob Humphreys.

Wallingford's only response was an unconverted try by Johnny Collett which made it 13-5 at half-time.

Harwell, much to the pleasure of their large group of vociferous supporters, maintained their momentum into the second half until that crucial sin-binning.

Wallingford capitalised with tries from Collett, Henry Venners and Lee Lewis, the latter converting one.

Harwell were still not finished and camped on the Wallingford line. With three minutes left, second row Glen Cuthbertson crashed over for an unconverted try.

They continued to pile on the pressure, but it was to no avail as Wallingford held on until the final whistle.