Match report: Chosen Hill 20, Burnham 1st XV 19 (From This is The West Country)

Match report: Chosen Hill 20, Burnham 1st XV 19

8:00am Thursday 4th October 2012 in Sport

Western Counties North

Chosen Hill 20, Burnham 1st XV 19

THE ever-faithful travelling band of supporters travelled north on Saturday to watch a game of two distinct halves.

Both sides were making errors at the start of the game making it a very scrappy first ten minutes. Then, after a great break from Elisi on his own 22, the ball found Tim Piper and then on to the flying Bobby Hewlett who was brought down illegally on the Chosen Hill 22. Burnham took the scrum option, won the scrum, the ball went through the hands and Jordan Paul scored.

Burnham kept the pressure on with some very accurate tactical kicking from Rio Cooper. Both sets of forwards were making mistakes and both being turned over but Burnham’s defence was outstanding with Luke Gowan leading the way, turning over Chosen Hill at a ruck and winning a penalty which allowed Rio to relieve the pressure. Chosen Hill knocked on from the line-out and from the scrum Burnham set out to attack; the Chosen Hill defence held firm and turned the ball over, their clearing kick found Jordan Paul who offloaded to Cooper then majestic handling skills to Piper and Elisi released Hewlett to score again; the conversion by Cooper was successful.

Chosen Hill upped their game but the Seasiders’ defence was too strong, and it was Paul again storming through the Chosen Hill line and skipping past tackles only to be stopped 5m short of the try line. However, he had support and the ball was popped up to Lloyd Steward to score under the posts. The try was converted by Cooper to make it 19-0.

The home side came fighting back just before the break and were rewarded with a penalty which reduced the arrears.

It was a total turnaround in the second half as an early penalty and then try for the home side brought the scores back to 19-13.

The tension was building and Chosen Hill, from a scrum 15m from Burnham’s line, dished the ball out to their flanker who ran over the line in the seventh minute of injury time to win by one point.

• Burnham face another tough test on Saturday when they entertain second placed Barton Hill (ko 3pm).
•  THE 2nd XV’s match against Minehead 2nds was cancelled due to no referee. On Saturday, they travel to Bridgwater to play Morganians (ko 3pm) while the Rusty Antlers travel to Bristol Imperial (ko 2pm).
• There is an evening of entertainment at the club on Saturday night with the band, The Talk Show Hosts, starting at 6.30pm.