Redingensians, as last season, fielded a huge set of forwards, greatly outweighing Chiltern and this, together with some questionably harsh refereeing decisions that continually seemed to go against the hosts and disrupted their flow of play, was ultimately the difference. It was, however, a vastly improved performance on last season, when the scores were 55-5 and 57-17 to Redingensians in the corresponding fixtures - a sure sign that the team is coming to terms with life in this League, now also boosted by the return from injury of several key players.

It was Chiltern that scored first after six minutes, when a counter-attack resulting from a turnover in the centre, great support and quick handling led to a try by No.8 Adam Henderson on the right, superbly converted by Hilton Mudariki and a 7-0 lead. Then followed a long period of attacking play and good retained possession by the visitors, initially well contained by some stout defending from the hosts, but ultimately, giving way to a try on the right, unconverted, but bringing the score back to 7-5. Chiltern were then simply unable to gain any reasonable possession of the ball and, again, only brave defending against the far heavier opposition kept them at bay until just before half time, when dominance in the scrum by the Redingensians forwards led to a push-over try and, though unconverted, the lead at 7-10 at the break.

It was Chiltern that scored first after the restart, a well taken penalty by Mudariki levelling the scores at 10-10. The continuing dominance of the visitor’s scrum, however, constantly caused Chiltern problems. Possession that they did obtain from the set-piece was received going backwards and resulted in a lack of momentum. Penalty after penalty was awarded against them and finally, from a scrum on the host’s 22, the referee awarded a penalty try to the visitors, also sin-binning substitute scrum-half, Jim Dye. The simple conversion gave the visitors the lead again at 10-17 and Chiltern, now a man down, were up against it.

This, however, is a far more confident Chiltern side than the one that started the season and they immediately went on the attack, seemingly catching the visitors unawares. A charged down kick in the visitor’s 22 was quickly followed up by the hosts and great handling and support led to a try for hooker Tom Blackburn again well converted by Mudariki and once again levelling the scores at 17-17. Both sides then strived for the winning score, the game ebbing and flowing from one end to the other until, with ten minutes left, yet another penalty awarded against Chiltern in front of the posts gave the visitors the lead at 17 – 20. From then until the end of the game all the pressure came from Chiltern, frustratingly being held up just before the visitor’s line time and again and it was a somewhat relieved Redingensians that heard the final whistle.

Despite the loss, Chiltern maintain tenth place in the League and look forward to playing Avonmouth Old Boys next week at home, who are one place below us.