St.Austell 1st XV 57-14 Chard 1st XV

THE scoreline doesn’t reflect how competitive Chard were throughout this game against the league leaders on dry cold Saturday in Cornwall.

Chard were looking to avenge the defeat they suffered at hone earlier in the season when chard lost 31-0.

The visitors kicked off and right from the start it was clear what the home teams game plan was cheered on by the large home crowd, the game was played at scintillating pace.

The host's backs looked extremely dangerous every time they had the ball and if it wasn’t for the commitment and defence of the Chard team collectively, with special mention to Dean Richards and Charlie Tribble, the scoreline would have been a lot higher.

Chard gave Ieuan Watkins at 9 his debut in this baptism of fire and played well, the hosts were evenly matched in the forwards with Chard winning a lot of lineout ball from Jack Elliott and skipper Max Gosden.

The Chard forward’s won a lot of praise from the home side supporters winning scrummage after scrummage which has been much the case all season but the hosts backs were on the day probably the best backs Chard had played against so far this season.

Despite this Chard rarely entered the hosts half and it took the hosts 20 minutes to put the first score on the board which  managed to keep the scoreboard at 19-0 at half time.

The second half was much the same for the first 25 minutes and the hosts scored 2 quick tries to effectively put game out of reach for the visitors, however Chard were not going to be bullied and scored an excellent try by Huw Edwards converted by Emil Szydelko.

Later, Emil scored a try of his own soon after with an interception try which was again converted by him.

This turned out to be Chard's last points of the match, however this fine 15 minute purple patch came to an end with the impressive Jack Elliott getting a yellow card, for an alleged high tackle, the hosts now started to up the pressure and it was now a damage limitation exercise with the hosts keeping the pressure on right until the final whistle.

Chard can learn a lot from this game and will look back with envy that how effective and simple their game plan was.

To summarise this game Chard didn’t play badly and 10 out of 10 for the way competed throughout and every Chard player can be proud of the way they played.