Warm up matches under way

Pre-season Kicks off in style

Following Chichester`s senior squad team building at Thorney Island Army base on Thursday 19th an expanded team of 36 players took on traditionally strong London 2 side Tottonians in a 4 Qtrs warm up match at Chichester University ground on Saturday 21st.
Along with a big squad a fair sized crowd gathered to watch the opening exchanges of the 10/11 season to assess if the excellent numbers and momentum of pr-season could be carried onto the pitch.
One of the problems for the coaching team was to fit so many players into meaningful units with long enough game time to really asses form and judge several of the new faces at Oaklands park this season.
However by the end of a very entertaining afternoon Chi had run out comfortable 41-7 winners and had managed to blend lots of combinations giving some difficult decisions as the squad will need to be cut for this weeks final warm up match away to rising Sussex challengers East Grinstead.
In the first Qtr the blues played a mixture of experienced first team campaigners and one or two players pushing up from the 2s.
Steve McCluskey having been away travelling all of last season settled straight back in ;linking well with his back line and causing the greens all sorts of problems round the fringes , 2nd team player coach Jimmy Taylor moved the ball well from 10 and although there was some set piece rustiness the blues held the upper hand throughout;Ben Polhill drove his side forward supported by big mancunian O`Callaghan who regularly smashed over the gain line. McCluskey sniped through from this front foot ball for the opening score.Hinajosa although missing the conversion slotted a penalty to leave the score 8-0.
The greens spent most of the 20 under pressure but did show with one lighting break from the right wing that they were still dangerous opponents. The wing gassed passed his opposite number and closed in on the line only the superb covering of no6 Chris Johnson snuffed out the threat with a text book smother tackle. Upton at fullback was assured in everything he did including one howitzer line clearance to hammer the greens back.
In the second Qtr Chi rang the changes with six new new boys making there débuts along with a couple of players on the comeback trial, this qtr was a little disjointed with several penalties against giving the away side a better platform to work off.
However Mark Giddings moving from 2 to 7 carried on his good work from the first Qtr with a couple of excellent turnovers and gave the Totts 10 a torrid time.
Although under pressure Chi scrambled well in defence with Grace cutting down the dangerous right wing with a copy book tackle .The 2nd Qtr ended with no further score.
The 3rd Qtr saw the introduction of key players Lawrence ,Blount ,Veltom up front and Smallman Polhill Renwick and Sevi in the backs.All added to an increase in pace and tempo ; Sevi ran through round and over several startled green opponents with O`Callagan going over to score followed up quickly by Sevi with Jack Smallman adding the extras.With the 20 coming to a close a comfortable 24-0 nil was closed to 24-7 with a length of the field interception of a mishit grubber kick.
The other highlight of the Qtr was to see Jon Lindsay at 8 complete his first live rugby since his very serious injury 17 months ago.
By the last Qtr Totts had lost there strong loose head to a dislocated shoulder – we wish him a speedy recovery and a further injury to a front row meaning that half the 3rd Qtr and all of the final were reduced to uncontested scrums much to the disappointment of Phil Veltom and Nick Shopland who were really starting to get on top.Never the less the blues continued to turn the screw with some excellent attacking rugby with both Moses Kasujja and Nick Shopland going on barnstorming runs with excellent interpassing throughout the whole side ; Rob Lawrence showed he knows his way to the line with two quick scores and Andy Gray rounded off a good debut with a powerful burst to score out wide.
Final score 41 -7

Paul Colley – Director of Rugby

As a coaching team we were pleased with the intensity and the relative continuity considering the number of changes we made. However there are lots of areas to work on and we will have to go up several notches in the next few weeks as we take on two sides who have stormed their leagues and recruited heavily in the off season in East Grinstead next week and the big spending Tonbridge Juddians in our first league game on Sept 4th at home.