Chiltern welcomed back their skipper, 2nd row, Tom Grammenos from injury last Saturday, but were without their previous week’s man-of-the-match playmaker, fly-half, Ross Bugden, absent for personal reasons. Ross should return next week, but stepping into his shoes for last Saturday’s game came new signing, Steve Scopes, who encouragingly fitted seamlessly into the regular three-quarter line up. An injury to No.8, Adam Henderson, also necessitated some rearrangement in the back row, with Gareth Wehrle, who joined the club from Chesham this season, coming onto the bench. Chiltern previously beat Avonmouth twice last season, but some of their later results last season showed a marked improvement. Still missing their previous options at jumper, Chiltern struggled in the lineout all afternoon, but were vastly superior in the scrums, ensuring a good supply of possession from this set piece.

Chiltern came out of the blocks at a furious pace and immediately put the visitors, probably still recovering from their long coach journey, under extreme pressure. A desperate Avonmouth kick ahead was well fielded by full-back, Chris Jack, who immediately started the counter-attack. Making a huge amount of ground into the visitor’s half and wrong-footing the defence, a smooth pass to winger, Tim Lloyd in space provided him with a try in the corner, superbly converted by Matt Gilbert and a 7 – 0 lead. Huge pressure from the restart allowed Gilbert to convert a penalty and then after 16 minutes, a great move following a turn-over in the visitor’s half saw James Carty come into the line from his wing and a clever miss-pass to Lloyd put him in for his second try of the afternoon, again converted by Gilbert and the score move on to 17 – 0 to the home side. Whether Chiltern then relaxed, or became over-confident is hard to say, but mistakes started to creep into their game and a number of silly penalties were given away. This gave the visitors renewed confidence and only some sterling defence kept them off the scoreboard right up until the half time whistle.

Twelve minutes into the restart, Chiltern won a good lineout on the visitor’s 22. The ball was moved swiftly along the line to the right, Carty came into the line again off his wing and took the inside pass from Lloyd on the right wing for a try under the post, duly converted by Gilbert, moving the score on to 24 – 0. Then followed a rare period of intense pressure from the visitors that resulted in a lineout, this time on the home side’s 22 on the left. An inexplicable poor throw-in landed right in the arms of an unmarked Avonmouth player, who gratefully dived over for a try, excellently converted from wide out, reducing the deficit to 24 – 7. With 33 minutes gone and the clock ticking down, Chiltern won a lineout on the visitor’s 22 and swift passing found Dave Skelton on the wing, who used his speed to race pass the tiring visitor’s defence for the bonus point try in the corner. The conversion was missed, but the final whistle went soon after with the final score 29 – 7 to the home side.

Chiltern are now 2nd in the league table, two points behind Lydney, but only through points difference. Next Saturday they make the long journey down to Barnstaple for their first away game of the season.