Chinnor soar as Thorpe earns his stripes

CHINNOR’S rookie coach Richard Thorpe has what it takes to reach the top, according to experienced centre Bevon Armitage.

Former Canada, London Irish, Leicester and London Welsh flanker Thorpe has made an impressive fist of his first stint in coaching, with the ambitious Oxfordshire-based outfit setting the National Two South pace with eight straight wins.

Armitage, 34, who joined from Championship outfit Doncaster, told The Rugby

Paper: “Richard’s going to make a very good coach. All the boys have bought into what he’s doing here and the team ethos he’s created in a short period has been impressive.

“You enjoy going to training on a Tuesday and Thursday night and you can tell by the way we’re playing that we’re enjoying games.

“Richard’s harsh on everyone so if you make a mistake you know he’s going to come down on you. He lets us enjoy our wins, but we never get to gloat because it’s straight back to business and he’s always pushing to make us better.

“He’s an international who’s worked under some top, top coaches, so you listen to a guy like that and I think he can go a long way.”

Armitage, the elder brother of Delon and Steffon, opted to step down a couple of levels this summer after making over 200 appearances in the second tier for Esher, Moseley, Plymouth Albion and Doncaster.

He said: “Chinnor were keen on having me and there are a few ambitious plans around what they want to achieve here.

“We’re really excited about how we’ve started but nobody’s getting arrogant about it and we’re paying respect to every team in this league.

“We signed a lot of good players over the summer and we’ve gelled pretty quickly.”

He added: “We’ve been playing in decent weather but when it gets to the nittygritty part, that’s when we’ll find out what we’re about.

“The league’s been a bit of an eye-opener from what I’ve been used to, but it’s a decent standard and most teams try to play rugby.”