For our longest away trip this season, we decided to book a coach for the journey to Chippenham for a friendly with one of Wiltshire's strongest teams. We took 23 players who were fit and available, albeit with only one trained prop so the game was played with uncontested scrums.
In the first half we had the strong wind behind us, and both teams struggled to control the ball, with lineout throws and long passes being affected, and several kicks bouncing through the dead ball area. At 30 minutes the score was still 0-0, but Bracknell were beginning to dominate both possession and territory. From a 5m scrum we drove forward a number of phases and Matt H dived over to score, with Liam narrowly missing a drop kick conversion attempt.
Soon after the restart Bracknell applied pressure again, with Dan charging down a Chippenham attacking chip kick, collecting and running into their half and feeding Scott for a great score. Liam's kick put us 0-12 to the good as half time loomed. However, Chippenham secured an attacking lineout in our 22 as the last play of the half, and drove over from the subsequent maul to end the half 5-12 down.
We then were playing into the wind, and rolled lots of subs for the second half, but our intensity did not drop at all. The play was equal and end to end, but Chippenham took a penalty in front of the posts on 50 minutes to close the gap to 8-12. Bracknell then strung together multiple phases to allow Harris to score in the left corner, leaving Liam with an impossible kick into the swirling cross wind, but we were 8-17 ahead heading into the last few minutes. Chippenham finished the game on a high with an excellent crossfield kick being caught by their right winger to score out wide, and the final conversion of the match gave a final score of 15-17 to Bracknell.
Many of the Bracknell Colts delivered standout performances, too many to mention individually, but the one that the Chippenham coaches said made the difference was Matt H who dominated from the no.8 position. His star moment was a drive in the first half of some 30+ metres and he seemed to be carrying half the Chippenham defenders with him, truly awesome! Special mention too for our 3 injured props who travelled to support the team - Stefano (back), George (finger) and David (ankle).
We then celebrated with Alfie's birthday cake and some dubious quality singing, before a very raucous coach journey back home along the M4.

by Phil Wells