South West 1
North Petherton 1st XV 46, Chard 1st XV 24

AFTER their terrific win against high-flying Newent the previous weekend, Chard were hoping for another win at North Petherton on Saturday but, sadly, it was not to be, writes Glyn Hughes.

Owing to sickness and injury, Chard lost the services of four of the team that had played against Newent and had to bring in coach Simon Jenkins for his first game of the season to try and bolster a rebuilt front row.

Right from the off, the aggressive and well-drilled Petherton forwards showed they would be a handful, particularly in loose play and, following some excellent driving mauls, set up a converted try for Jack Kohler who scored under the posts after only five minutes.

Chard were soon back in the game when they quickly ran the ball from a penalty and Will Hopkinson drove over for an excellent try which was converted from wide out on the left by Oesmani.

Midway through the half, the home side scored their second converted try when, again, Chard were again unable to stop their drive to the line.

Chard were guilty of giving away a number of penalties and, with the ground gained from kicking to touch, Petherton crossed for their third try which was not converted.

Soon after the restart, Chard were awarded a penalty kick as result of a high dangerous tackle and Oesmani drilled the ball between the uprights to make the half-time score 19-10.

As well as conceding a number of penalties, Chard had been making other basic errors, particularly in terms of not being able to secure and keep the ball in key situations and in their general handling.

They had a harsh lesson direct from the restart in the second half when they failed to secure the kick-off; Petherton gratefully accepted the gift and crossed for their fourth and bonus point try.

For a short time things went from bad to worse for Chard as they had a player sent to the bin for a deliberate knock on, and from the resultant penalty Kohler crossed for his second try which was again converted.

North Petherton were at this stage well on top and although they deserved to score another try it came in dubious circumstances as the home player involved clearly lost the ball as he was about to touch down.

The referee, who had had a very good game, was unsighted but accepted the word of the home touch judge, who said it was fair score.

This seemed to spark Chard and they had their best spell of the game in the final quarter when they scored two converted tries, with these coming from Jenkins and Oesmani.

The Chard backs are clearly a lot stronger than they have been but this has unfortunately coincided with the forwards not being able to dominate the exchanges up front as well as they would like and the injury to vice-captain Luke Aplin is a big blow.

Once again, the effort of the players cannot be doubted and next Saturday they have a really big game at home to Okehampton (ko 2.15pm) when they will be hoping to reproduce the performance they put in against Newent.

The 2nd and 3rd XV games scheduled for last Saturday had to be postponed to a later date because there were no referees available.

Next Saturday, the 2nd XV are away against Tor and the 3rds visit Wincanton.