Salisbury U 13’s B 5 v Chippenham A/B 34

This fixture was split into two as first a Salisbury B side played against a Chippenham A/B team in glorious conditions on Hudsons Field.After no rugby for a good few weeks this eagerly anticipated game against local opposition did not disappoint even though the scoreline of 34-5 did give a one sided view of the game as the much more experienced and larger ( nothing new to this Salisbury side) Chippenham forwards had to work hard to score their tries. Indeed all the tries, bar one a breakaway in the second half, were scored with the aid of the slope.

Max Bird was an ever present thorn in the side of the opposition distributing good ball to our stand in No 10. Several times the backs got the ball nicely down the line but were just not quite good enough to evade the taller quicker defence. In the forwards  most  got in some good tackles with Noah Williams, Toby Brown, Cameron Stott, Matthew  Stockton  to the fore and allied with good rucking and scrummaging techniques just about held their own for long periods.

The team never gave up and had the consolation of scoring the final points of the game so well done to everyone who played.

Salisbury U 13's A 19 v Chippenham 7

The B team were  very interested to see that the just about the entire Chippenham A team pack had been playing against them, not necessarily in their preferred positions, but it should put their own performance in perspective.

Salisbury started very well and with the forwards providing good ball the fullback Ed Crossley twice created an overlap for Tom Lewis to score two first half tries. Today the backs did not get carried away with the slope and kick too much keeping the ball in hand with James Bagguley and Felix Martin making the right decisions on when to run and when to pass, like seasoned pros ( The referrees word not just mine). As the forwards gained in confidence they started to take the ball on more and this created a second half try when  Harry Pizzey  came off his wing looking for the ball and scored  under the posts giving Edward an easy second conversion.

Salisburys tackling was again top notch and Chippenham playing down the hill could not really get any momentum going . James Hill carried and tackled well and Charlie Bramble was always a handful.
It was a credit to Chippenham that they scored a consolation try towards the end.

After such a long time without playing this was both a good turnout and performance by the boys really giving us something to build on for the games coming up over the next few weeks. The backs need to look at being a little more inventive and the forwards could add some interpassing to their game but all in all a very sound performance.