Gladiators under 14s hosted Chorley Panthers at the Cheshire this morning and playing on the new Mannings lane pitch put on a great team performance to claim the points and move to 3 wins from 3 games to continue their great start to the 2021 season.

The platform for the performance was set in the middle of the park with Peter Bennington shining with some strong runs in the front row. The team had great balance and half back partners Joe Wilcock and Owen Hughes marshalled the troops around the field in attack and looked to exploit the pace in the Chester team.

The game started with a flurry as Chester received the opening kick off and Ben Turner broke the line on the second tackle of the game to race 80 metres to open the scoring, with Owen Hughes adding the extras. Peter Bennington was involved in some solid drives sucking in the Chorley defence before receiving a nice offload from Max Follows to continue Chester driving up the field. Lewis Ruffell but in a fantastic defensive performance shutting down multiple attempts by Chorley to get down their right edge.

The ball was changing hands quickly with some knock ons from both teams and Harry King-Magee collected a loose ball in difficult circumstances to set up another Chester attack in their own half including a very powerful run from Max on the left edge to move the team 40 metres upfield. Chorley stood strong and resisted the Chester attack well. Chester started to give away a couple of penalties and Dan Taberrer put a huge tackle on the one of the bigger Chorley players which fired up the Chester players.

Alex Woodbury played some fantastic attacking rugby drawing in 2 Chorley defenders before passing out to Owen Hughes who raced away to extend the Chester lead with Alex adding the Conversion. From the kick off Ben Turner raced the length of the pitch to score under the posts and Owen Hughes this time added the extra points. With the risk of the Chester team starting to dominate the referee started to add to complexity and Chester managed the game well under the additional pressure.

Next to break the line was Dylan Yearsley who broke the line in the middle of the field and raced for the line but some fantastic covering defence from Chorley saw him dragged down close to the try line in a carbon copy of the game last year. Chester camped in the Chorley 20 metre put some great wide passes on and Lewis can close to scoring of a pass from Joe Wilcock before Max Follows scored a great try from a tight crash line carrying 2 Chorley defenders with him over the line.

It was then time for Chester to show their goal line defence skills and Joshua Smith and Owen Davies made some great try saving tackles before the Chorley Attack found a gap on their left edge to sneak over for their first try of the day making the half time score 22-4 to Chester.

After the break Chorley started the stronger and benefitted from a penalty given away by Chester to allow them to add more pressure and a slow defence line was punished as Chorley scored their second try to bring the score to 22-8.

Fullback Rhys Hughes showed his great footwork and game awareness by dancing through the Chorley defenders before barging into the post protectors to score a try with Alex Woodbury kicking the conversion.

Next up the half backs partnered well with a great quick pass out wide from Joe to Owen Hughes who rounded the defence to score his second try of the afternoon in the corner but the position meant that the conversion was a difficult one and it fell just wide. Chester started to play with confidence and structure and with the forwards sucking in the middle defenders well Joe and Owen passed wide to Max who in turn passed to the winger Carter Foster but the Chorley edge defence stood firm and stopped him scoring in the corner.

Ben Turner then broke the line only to be chased back by a Chorley defender who forced a knock on and saved the try being scored, but not to be out done on the next possession Ben broke again and this time hit the gas and ran 70 metres to score under the posts and Rhys Hughes stepped up to add the extras.

Chester's defence was tiring and poor line speed allowed Chorley to break down their right edge before Max Follows swept across and cleaned out the threat taking man and ball into touch in what has to be said was the tackle of the game.

Full time score was 38-8 and in fairness Chester could have scored more points but the development in their rugby awareness and trying new things for themselves will stand them in good stead as the season progresses.

Max Follows was named as Chorley Coaches Man of the Match with Chester Coaches calling out performances from Dan T and Lewis Ruffell in defence.

Pictures on the day were taken by John Renowden and the club would like to thank him for some excellent pictures