Our first league match for several weeks was a B team fixture in OBB Colts Div 3 away at Chinnor, so we took our squad up the M40 expecting a tough challenge.
In true Bracknell fashion, we started half asleep leaving some gaps in defence, and were soon 12-0 down. Chinnor then suffered a yellow card, and the man advantage seemed to spur our Colts into action. A series of attacks resulted in a 5m penalty, and after several drives to the line Luke grounded the ball on the post, with Louis's conversion making it 12-7. Further attacks drove us deep into the Chinnor 22, and following a training ground lineout move Max drove over in the left corner. Louis then nailed an excellent conversion rebounding off the post to put us 12-14 in the lead.
By this time Chinnor were back to full strength, and attacked for a lengthy period. Our defence was stretched but held out for several minutes, but eventually conceded a converted try to put Chinnor back in front 19-14. Bracknell ended the first half camped in the Chinnor 22 but couldn't quite get the points we deserved, but the match score was probably a fair reflection of the first half.
The second half began with Bracknell asleep again, and Chinnor scored in the corner to stretch their lead to 24-14. By this time, we had rolled some substitutes so the new team line-up took a while to settle down, but we began to dominate possession and territory, camped in their half. Eventually, a number of forwards phases ended up with Stan picking and bursting through including an excellent handoff to score under the posts. This was his second score in consecutive weeks, and Matt B nailed the conversion to bring Bracknell back to 24-21, game on!
The rest of the game was played in the Chinnor half, but we couldn't quite find the score that was needed, and a narrow defeat looked on the cards. The final moves of the game were a series of drives and multiple phases by the whole team, and eventually Charlie M burst through to score the winning try in the final minute. Matt B didn't hit his cleanest conversion kick but it was good enough for the ref and it gave Bracknell Colts B team a well-earned 24-28 win away at Chinnor.
Massive credit to all the boys who played today, particularly some of the subs who didn't get much game time but supported enthusiastically to the end. A great team effort and lots of grit and determination to hang on in the game when we were struggling and then to turn on the performance when it really counted.

by Phil Wells