Brentwood entertained high flying Letchworth on Saturday at King Georges in front of a bumper crowd. The pre match Presidents Christmas lunch had the supporters in a festive mood. With 3 wins in a row the Brentwood team were confident they would match Letchworth who themselves had hit some good form in recent weeks.

Brentwood welcomed the return of Sean Phillips in the front row and Charlie Chambers at fly half for his first senior game of the season. The late withdrawal of Tom King in the back row meant a last minute reshuffle.

Letchworth won the toss and elected to play up hill in the first half. This calculated risk nearly back fired as Brentwood took early control in the forwards and drove the Letchworth team back, eventually the referee Andy Boulanger awarded Brentwood a penalty for off side, which Charlie Chambers slotted for the home team for the first points of the game, 3-0.

Letchworth came back from the restart and with some clever play from the Letchworth backs saw them carve an opening and score an unconverted try wide out wide out to gain the lead at 5-3.

The crowd who were expecting a free an open game of rugby were disappointed as both sets of forwards attempted to gain the upper hand in a hard fought game. Brentwood were beginning to win domination at the breakdown with some excellent work from Roman, Whaley and Matters. Good clearing out by the front five won good procession for the backs with Harris and Chambers controlling the game.
Brentwood’s only try of the match saw Roman touch down under the posts after miscommunication between the Letchworth back three following excellent pressure from Matters. The try gave Chambers an easy conversion to give Brentwood a 10 – 5 lead.

Letchworth immediately replied with some very slick movement of the ball for their centre to score and unconverted try bringing the game level at 10 -10.
The restart saw Brentwood gain control as Referee Boulanger lost patience with the Letchworth number 7 and sin binned him for persistent off side. From the resulting penalty Chambers pushed Brentwood back into the lead at 13-10 at half time.

Brentwood knew that Letchworth would use the slope to pin them back in the second half and the coaching team demanded patience and discipline not to give Letchworth any cheap penalty points. The second half was a dog fight neither side able to break free of the other. Some outstanding defence saw Brentwood repel Letchworth time after time. Letchworth eventually created an opening to score a try wide out but the conversion was missed. Letchworth had regained the lead 13-15 but the immense defensive effort was beginning to show on Brentwood.
Letchworth did not allow any time or space on the ball and the game became bogged down as both sides were unable to generate good ball. Brentwood rallied in the last 15 minutes and they were awarded a penalty at the scrum which Charlie Chambers slotted over for Brentwood to regain the lead 16-15.

The last few minutes saw a tremendous display by Brentwood as Letchworth became more and more desperate to find the winning score. The final whistle brought a tense encounter to an end with Brentwood winning by a single point.

Director of Rugby Steve Killington described the performance as immense. He commented "Every player gave 100% today against a very good Letchworth side. We have proven to ourselves that we are able to compete against the best and win."

Next week Brentwood travel to Colchester who have already beaten us at home at the beginning of the season in a very close encounter. We will need to perform with the same intensity if we are going to get anything from that game.