Undefeated, top of the table Brentwood travelled to Chiswick, to take on 6th placed CS Rugby 1863, last Saturday, a team who were relegated from National League 3 at the end of last season, bur are known for playing an open and expansive game, and this was a match looked upon by the Brentwood players and coaches as a must win game if they were to continue as serious contenders for promotion from London 1 North.

Brentwood notoriously slow starters, lost the toss, and in extremely wet conditions, kicked off with a strong wind blowing in their favour, against a highly motivated side clearly keen to end the visitor’s excellent start to the season.

As expected, bearing in mind the conditions, Brentwood had territorial advantage during the early exchanges, but were unable to dominate the game, due not only to excellent tackling by the home side, but also the inability of the visitors to move the ball along the backs. This lead to CS Rugby beginning to put Brentwood under pressure, but some excellent tackling by all the Brentwood players, meant that after 20 minutes the score stood at nil all.

Brentwood then had their only purple patch of the game and ran in 2 quick tries, firstly after good play by the centre pairing of Henry Bird and Adam Thomas, Ed Greenfield raced a full 45 metres to beat the covering defence, and dive in on the corner, this was shortly followed by a try from Declan Gillett, who danced through some desperate CS Rugby defence to score a try converted by Henry Bird. Taking the score to 12 – 0.

Brentwood really should have taken the game by the throat, and run in some more points, as, with half time looming, CS where reduced to 13 players after 2 of their players were sin binned, but this was not to be, and with an easy penalty being missed, the half time whistle blew with Brentwood in front by 12 points, a slender lead, bearing in mind that CS Rugby would have the wind advantage in the 2nd half.

The 2nd half started with Brentwood camped in the CS Rugby 22, but they were unfortunately unable to convert this dominance into points, and as the half progressed CS began to take control, scoring 18 points, 2 tries, of which one was converted, plus 2 penalties.
So Brentwood’s first set back for the season, and with only a losing bonus point from the game, sees their lead at the top of the table is cut to 2 points, with Amersham and Chiltern, hard on their heels.

The Chigwell Construction Man of the Match, was awarded to Jon Crisp