Chiltern win showed character, but need more control

And, despite quite their poorest performance of the season so far, particularly in the first half, showed enough character to scrape a win in the dying minutes.

In complete contrast to the previous week, Chiltern dominated in the set scrum and this seemed to lead to a certain complacency and overconfidence that nearly cost the game. Twice decisions were made to opt for a scrum, rather than to kick for goal, denying the hosts six fairly certain points and resulting in no gain. Ross Bugden stepped in at fly-half for the unavailable David Hughes for his first start since recovering from a serious injury and his lines of running, being different to those of Hughes, seemed to lead to a degree of hesitancy and uncertainty in the back line, resulting in dropped passes, charged down kicks and turnovers.

The game, taking place on the unfamiliar second team pitch due to the main pitch being waterlogged, was for most of the time also played in torrential rain and gathering gloom, which did not favour an open game. Avonmouth, to give them credit, competed bravely despite being well beaten up front and some first-class positional kicking, particularly from their scrum-half, kept Chiltern under pressure and them in the game right until the end.

Avonmouth pressed hard from the kick-off, but a surging counter-attack by Chiltern after ten minutes took them deep into the visitors half. A driving scrum and quick ball switched left found flanker Darren Smith, who dived over for the try, superbly converted from wide out by Hilton Mudariki and a 7-0 lead. The ease of this score then seemed to go the Chiltern player’s heads and they set about trying to run the ball from all positions, resulting most of the time in dropped passes, players being isolated and numerous infringements, punished by the Avonmouth kicker with three converted penalties giving them a half-time lead at 7-9.

The visitors also started strongest in the second half and after ten minutes, a rolling maul deep in the Chiltern half was illegally pulled down and the referee had no hesitation in awarding Avonmouth a penalty try. The simple conversion thus gave the visitors a commanding 7-16 lead.

Staring at defeat in a game they felt they should win seemed to wake Chiltern up and the players reverted to basics, picking and driving their way up field. A penalty awarded to Chiltern was once again superbly converted by Mudariki from the half-way line, narrowing the gap to 10-16 and another soon after made it 13-16. Into the last ten minutes and Chiltern were still facing defeat, three points adrift. More forward drives resulted in a scrum ten metres out from the visitor’s line and the dominant scrum saw the hosts on the front foot and it was skipper Craig Webb who finally dived over for the all-important try, converted by Mudariki and at last the lead again at 20-16.

Avonmouth tried desperately to strive for the winning score, but were denied by a determined Chiltern defence and with minutes to go, an interception took the hosts well back into the visitor’s half. It was then the visitor’s turn for some desperate defending, but the clock ran down with no addition to the scoreline and Chiltern the winners with four valuable points.