Our winning squad against Chippenham
Cheltenham Barbarians 10, Chippenham 5 - Report by Hettie Harris
The Cheltenham Under 11’s were invited to play a “curtain raiser” with the Under 11’s from Chippenham RFC, who were visiting. The team selected to play was a mixed team of A & B’s, and consisted of Will Byrd, Dan Tucker, Max Sayer-Martin, Rob Harris, Callum Dean, Rob Spencer, Charlie Green, Alex Chalklin, Sam Jones, David Payne, Lawrence Norwood, Adam Hale, Karl Medley, Tom Kent, Theo Bulless, Brodie Ash, Jonty Wilkinson, Ollie Birmingham, Dewi Edwards.
The boys started with a hard training session with Dave Edwards, our coach. The weather was getting progressively worse and by the time we started the game, it was cold, windy and the rain was coming down at a slant. The match was refereed by our own Peter Brunt, ensuring a tight and fair game. The 1st Half was a trifle slow to get going, possibly due to being cold and Cheltenham conceded 2 tries (one disallowed), due to some big runs from Chippenham and not such good mid-field tackling from us. However, the boys didn’t lose heart, they raised their game and even with the ‘B’ team subs and several of our more inexperienced players on field in the 2nd Half, turned the game around. With some awesome tackling and some great runs from Will Byrd, Callum Dean, Dan Tucker and Max Sayer-Martin. They scored 2 tries, the first from Alex Chalklin, who was unstoppable (echoes of Jonah Lomu), which inspired the team and the 2nd was from Will Byrd, with some great pace. Chippenham had some big players, fast too, but the lads rose beautifully to the challenge. If Cheltenham play this well in the County Cup, in a few weeks time, they will be a force to be reckoned with.
