Chippenham take full advantage of Weston injury woes

Chippenham won against Weston for the first time ever in fortunate and occasionally unsavoury circumstances, and got the monkey off their back that has been annoying them for years. All summed up by a gleeful and euphoric supporter who was at pains to seek out the writer to ask “what’s it like to lose?”…the answer of course is “you tell me. You’ve been doing it for ten years!!” but all things must come to an end.
We now know where all the horse meat has gone. Coach Forster has been feeding it uncooked to his squad, who came out with unusual aggression and a variety of doubtful tactics which quickly resulted in yellow cards (only) for the miscreants….most unexpected!!
The visitors opened the scoring after ten minutes when from an attacking lineout, their scrum drove Nam over their own line for Swann to touchdown. Nam equalised five minutes later when a back scored in the corner and hereafter it all went wrong for Weston. Centre Edwards, having contemptuously breezed past the unfortunate Crockett, pulled up lame with the line at his mercy and left the field, not to return. The home side scored again on 15 minutes when a Surrey sneaked over from five yards for a converted try. Weston attacked and disaster struck when Dan Waldon, arguably the best scrum half in the League, dislocated a shoulder in an awkward fall, also not to return. This seriously inconvenienced Weston who now had fly half Young at scrum half, winger Jones at fly half, and No. 8 Sparks in the centre. Not very satisfactory and Chipp took advantage of the severe disruption with a third try and a penalty to lead 22-5. Weston responded with a second try on the stroke of half time when once again their scrum was far too strong and eased their opponents over their line for Burge to score. 22-12 at half time. Chippenham moved the score on to 37-12 during the second half as Westons’ lack of an out of hand kicker gave the opposition too much possession. Their fly half kicked well for position, pinning Weston in their own half and starting open field counter attacks, purposely keeping the play away from set pieces and Westons’ forwards, which was the sensible option as they could not compete up front. Their front row, including the largest “heavy roller” ever seen, spent the afternoon standing up (why don’t refs. penalise this? It’s a penalty offence!) and the behemoths in the second row either can’t push… or won’t push. Why are they there?
The last ten minutes were all Weston. Smee scored after 70 minutes for Blizzard to convert and the pack once again drove the opposition over the line for their third try, and a second for Swann to bring down the curtain on a disappointing and unfortunate day.
Weston team…Jones (Blizzard), Watkins, Smee, Edwards (Sparks), Sprague, Waldon(Blizzard), Young, Swann, Burge, Hobbs(Donegan), Glen, Somers, Eaton, Morrissey, Russell.