South West 1 West

Chard 44 Bridgwater & Albion 14

FOR Bridgwater, this was a game to forget as they were comfortably second best against a Chard side who are fighting to avoid a second consecutive relegation, writes Tony Pomeroy.

The result drops Bridgwater to fifth place in the league, with 59 pts, and they have been overtaken by Weston-super-Mare who earned five points from a 10-90 victory at Coney Hill.

Chard are now ninth with 34 points from 18 matches and should now be safe from the drop.

The contrast with last week's performance against Wells was stark.

The Bridgwater pack were under pressure from the first minute and had a difficult afternoon. Any ball they did win was very much on the retreat and it was very difficult to create an attacking platform.

The players felt the home pack were, perhaps, pushing a fraction early in set scrums but they have to overcome such problems.

The lineout was also not the usual feast of good ball.

In the loose, skipper Ollie Dunn and his vice-captain, Rob Allen, ran hard at the Chard defence all afternoon and sometimes needed more than one tackler to stop them, but they could not make the decisive breaks to lead to tries.

Bridgwater's defensive work fell below the high standards they have shown this season. Far too many tackles were missed as Chard's runners tore holes in the Bridgwater defence.

With Chard being the dominant team, they also benefitted from a number of 50/50 refereeing calls that could have gone either way - as is often the case as referees look favourably on the side playing the more positive rugby.

Chard opened the scoring after 13 minutes. The ball went into touch in the Bridgwater 22 and hit the advertising hoardings. Chard immediately threw the ball in and it reached winger Aaron Hunt who opened the scoring with the first of his two tries.

Jonathon Humphrey converted with a good kick.

Some referees would not have allowed the quick throw once the ball had been stopped by the hoardings as this had given Chard an undue advantage.

Minutes later, an exquisite cross-kick from Chard had Bridgwater in all sorts of trouble, but the ball just crossed the dead-ball line before it was touched down.

Humphrey increased the home lead with two penalties that both stemmed from Chard's domination at the scrum.

The final score of the half also came from a scrum as Chard drove a 5m scrum over the Bridgwater line where No 8 Mark Parsons scored the first of his three tries. Humphrey's conversion made it 20-0 at the break.

Bridgwater rang the replacement changes during the second period but to little avail.

Early in the second half, a Bridgwater 5m lineout was not straight and, from the resulting scrum, Chard again drove over the visiting line with Parsons scoring his second try. Humphrey's conversion from wide out smacked into the near post.

Chard achieved a four-try bonus point after 11 minutes when, following a rolling maul, flanker Louis Bartlett scored. Humphreys converted for a 32-0 lead.

Five minutes later, a loose Chard pass on half-way was intercepted by Bridgwater speedster Kyran Devitt, who outpaced the home defence to score in the corner. Chris Ashwin converted with an excellent kick.

After 28 minutes, the boot was on the other foot as Hunt intercepted a loose Bridgwater pass near half-way and raced through for his second try. Humphrey kicked the easy conversion.

Five minutes from the end, Chard kicked the ball dead from their 22m line and, from the resulting scrum, Nick Spellissy picked up and handed on to Scott Franklin whose arcing run took him clear of the defence and in under the posts to give Ashwin an easy conversion.

With the final move of the game, Chard set up another driving maul following a 5m lineout and Parsons was rewarded with his third try, this time unconverted, to leave the final score a 44-14 in favour of the dominant home side.

Bridgwater's coaching staff will have a lot to do before next week's visit to second-placed, Thornbury, where Bridgwater's defence will again, undoubtedly, be sternly tested.

Albion: Rob Gurnett, Kyran Devitt, Rob Allen, Jay Owens, Oscar Tregenna, Chris Ashwin, Scott Franklin, Lewis Phillips, Gavin Knight, Joe Bussell, Rob Thompson, Dan Kemmish, Luca Ercolani, Ollie Dunn (capt), Ethan Trebble-Westlake.

Replacements (all used): Adrian Tew, Nick Spellissy, Jervis Manupenu.