On a cold crisp winters morning Flint travelled to Whitchurch with only 16 players available for selection due to injury and illness. These two teams have never plated before however Flint were well aware of Whitchurch’s reputation.

The team had not been able to train for a few weeks due to the weather and in the pre match warm up it was apparent that some player’s fitness levels and skill levels had suffered due to the enforced lay off.

The game started with both sides battling for territory in the first ten minutes. Flints under strength pack were suffering in the scrums losing ground to the heavier Whitchurch forwards however it was poor tackling that allowed Whitchurch to open the scoring when there quick winger ran through almost all the Flint side to score under the post. After the restart Whitchurch continued the attack and forced Flint back into there own 22 and forced errors which resulted in a scrum. Following the scrum Flint lost Gaz Peters (hooker) through a shoulder injury and with no front row replacement had to ask to play the rest of the game uncontested. This took the edge off the Whitchurch attack however they did run in another try a few minutes before half time. Again following some home truths at half time Flint came out a different team and there forwards started to dominate the open play. Flint pinned Whitchurch into there own half for ten minutes before a quick counter attack against the run off play coupled with some terrible defence by Flints backs resulted in Whitchurch scoring. Flint then attacked from the kick off and again pinned Whitchurch into there own half. Flints forwards won some quick ball from some excellent open play and the back were given space to run. This resulted in some lovely handling with lloyd brown finishing the move with a well earned try. From the restart Flint attacked again and with almost a carbon copy move, scored a second try within 2 minutes this time Connor Kendrick going over to score. Flint must have thought that they could get back into the game but lost concentration 5 minutes later when again some poor defence allowed Whichurch to score. Flint had the best of the play for the remainder of the game however they could not capitalise on this and lost a very entertaining match.