Injury hit Chiltern thwarted by Barnstaple

This included skipper, Tom Grammenos, still recovering from injury and both of the previous week’s try scorers, James Carty and Dave Skelton. Also absent injured was new signing last week’s No.10, Steve Scopes and the influential back row, Perez Jack. No.8, Luke Antos, in for the injured Adam Henderson,was then lost to injury after only 8 minutes, requiring further rearrangement. Making their debuts for the team were centre Dom Daly, scrum half Dan Newlands and second row Ludwijk (Dutch) Gellens and welcomed back was fly half, Ross Bugden, 2nd row, Ollie Cato and utility forward, Jono Bradbury.

Chiltern started well and even though they lost Antos very early on, had the chance to go ahead with a penalty, but the chance was missed. Both sides showed good defences and it was 25 minutes before the next score, a converted penalty by the home side, followed soon after by another, giving them the lead at 6 – 0. Chiltern exerted some pressure, but missed two further penalty kicks, so the half time whistle was blown still with the score at 6 – 0.

Another penalty attempt soon after the restart was also missed, but Barnstaple converted one of their own, increasing their lead to 9 – 0. Then followed a good rolling maul by the home side, resulting in a drive over try, not converted, but taking their lead to 14 – 0 and the sin-binning of Chiltern’s scrum-half. The visitors did then come back into the game and 25 minutes of the half gone saw good pressure and linking between forwards and backs, resulting in a try for Ross Bugden, converted by himself, reducing the deficit to 14 – 7. With minutes to go, however, Barnstaple suddenly stretched the visitor’s defence creating an overlap for their wing to score in the corner, unconverted, but a final score of 19 – 7 to the home side.

Chiltern remain second in the league table, but face a hard game next week against newly-promoted Bracknell, who is level with them on points, at home at Weedon Lane. It can only be hoped that there is a speedy recovery from injury by some key players. Encouragingly, with Chiltern 2nd XV beating Beaconsfield 2nd XV by 52 points to 3 last Saturday, there is demonstrably a strength in depth in the club this season, something which has been lacking somewhat in previous years.