CHARD RUGBY REPORT
FOR
SATURDAY29TH SEPTEMBER 2007
SOMERSET PREMIER LEAGUE
CHARD 31PTS ST.BERNADETES 0 PTS

Chard recorded their fifth successive victory and their fourth league victory in a row to remain joint top of the table with Wells.
This victory was as comfortable as the final scoreline suggests but on reflection the club will be more satisfied with the result rather than the performance against a side still to register their first victory of the season.
The game was played in fairly wet conditions which did not make handling easy but Chard were very ordinary in the opening quarter and missed a host of chances to go ahead. Players cut inside when they had overlap situations and attempts to score tries rather than kick easy penalties failed on several occasions. Fly half Mark Lees missed a fairly straight forward  drop goal attempt and every thing was rather untidy.
Despite this poor start Chard were still by far the better side and eventually an interesting piece of innovation from scrum half Nicholls led to the opening score and what a try it was. Nicholls was in a difficult position to pass but managed to use his football skills to good effect and kicked the ball back to Lees. The ball then went out to Matt Ousley who linked well with Wagstaff who in turn got a good pass out to full back Ben Stead who raced in under the posts for a converted try. Chard then had what appeared to be a perfectly good try disallowed with the referee unsighted.
Right on half time Chard increased their lead when Prop Robin Singleton used his bulk effectively and crashed over from a lineout for  an unconverted try to give the home side a 12pt lead at the break.
Chard continued to dominate play in the second period but were struggling to put their superiority into points.
They did eventually get things together and some  good inter play between forwards and backs resulted in winger James Herbert going over for a fine try in the right hand corner which was expertly converted by Nicholls.
Chard increased their lead with another try almost immediately when the impressive Alan Henley finished off a fine move and scored wide out on the left with Nicholls again adding the conversion points. At this stage it looked like a damage limitation exercise for the visitors particularly as Chard were now looking likely to ,score at will and were having their best period of the match. Prop James Davies came on as a replacement and scored with his first touch  as he finished off a well worked lineout routine to score Chards fifth try of the afternoon much to the annoyance of former skipper Jon Hendy who usually likes to finish off these situations !!
Chard finished the game strongly and looked capable of scoring a lot more points but were denied this possibility by some apparent confusion over time keeping when the referee called a  very premature end to proceedings.
Chard have had a very successful start to the season but have yet to play any of the so called stronger sides in the league and the games in October are likely to give them a much stiffer test starting next week away to Glastonbury side Tor who have always given Chard a hard time especially on their own patch. However if Chard can keep these players together and keep working on their game they should win.

SOMERSET DIVISION 3 SOUTH         TAUNTON 40 PTS  CHARD 20PTS
Chard arrived to find that they were playing a much stronger Taunton side than  expected but Chard played with great spirit and could be proud of their performance and came back well after a dodgy start to score tries from
Adam Taylor, Billy Vernon and Mike Farthing. Lee Brun added  one conversion and skipper Wallis added a penalty goal. Chard are playing a lot of youngsters in this team and this was their first reverse of the season but they coped well and can take a great deal of positives from the game

DORSET AND WILTS DIV.2 SOUTH      Chard 0pts North Dorset 47pts
Chard were completely outplayed in the pack and were unable to win much ball which meant that the young  speedy Chard backs had little opportunity to shine. However they tackled like demons and skipper Andy Hopper was full of praise for their efforts.

Next Saturday all three sides are away with the first xv at Tor, the second xv at  Wellington and the 3rd xv at Sherborne.
All the world cup quarter final matches will be shown in the clubhouse next weekend