CENTS LOSE 1ST LEAGUE GAME

Cents started their National League 3 season with a narrow loss away at Chippenham.
Cents were very unlucky to lose this encounter as a draw would of been a fairer result.
Chippenham chose to start the game with the wind at their backs and they used it very well pinning Cents in there own half.
But Cents had the upper hand in the set pieces by stealing a couple of balls against the head in the scrums and lineouts.
The front row props of Scott Fritchley Sam Preece and Mike Mathers put pressure on the home teams scrums with Hooker Nathan Stroud also having a all-round fine game and hitting his lineouts to perfection.
Cents had the first chance of a score when Mark Marwood made a break up the middle and spread the ball wide to new boy fullback Ollie Locke who failed to use the overlap.
The game went from end to end and it was Cents who got on the scoreboard first when it was the pressure of the scrum that forced a penalty to Cents and a yellow card to Chippenham's flanker.
Cents kicked to the corner and with a catch and drive from the lineout Sam Preece crashed over. Connor Gwilliam missed the conversion.
Score 5-0
Chippenham hit back when Cents kicked the ball down the middle of the field for the fullback to gather and spinning it wide for the winger to go over in the corner, and the conversion was good.
Score 7-5
Chippenham scored a second from another Cents mistake leading to a 5m lineout and the openside flanker peeled round to score in the corne.
Score 12-5.
For the last 10 minutes of the first half Cents were in their own half but defended well and kept the score close up to the half time whistle.
Cents now had the wind at their backs and with their stronger scrums and lineouts needed to keep the away team pinned in there 22m area.
Scrum half James Knight scored a good snipping try under the post which was converted to level the scores.
Cents then put themselves under a huge amount of pressure with some wayward kicks, and not finding touch, this lead to a Rich Pinkney yellow card and another try out wide to make the score 17-12.
Chippenham then received their 2nd yellow card and with Rich Pinkney coming back it gave Cents a one man advantage and they scored their 3rd try by Matt Humphries to equalise. Score 17-17
With 10 minuetes left on the clock it looked like the game was going to end in a draw and with No8 Rich Pinkney making 80m with a huge kick Cents had Chippenham under pressure but there defence held firm.
With Cents having the upper hand in the lineouts all they needed to do was clear their lines but time after time they could not find the touch line, and as a result the winger done a clever little chip and after a couple of phases Chippenham scored in the corner for their 4th try and bonus point.
This was a pretty even encounter on the whole with both sides looking a little nervous and making a considerable amount of silly mistakes.
Cents had their chances but let it slip through their fingers.
Cents man of the match went to James knight.

Match report by Steve Preece.