Cotham Park RFC The closest Rugby club to Clifton in Bristol

Having just come off the back of a 1XV gap week one could have been forgiven for thinking that selection would be easy. You’d expect people to have booked their weekend playtime to have fallen in the break week and they would be chomping at the bit for some more rugby, sadly not! With numbers swelling at training to 40 people it is amazing that we are still short in a few key positions, most notably of all this week was flyhalf. Some last minute shuffling saw a new face in the number 10 birth, the babyfaced Pete Chilcott. The journeyman of the Cotham back line; in the last 2 seasons Chilli has moved from wing to fullback, full back to scrum half, and now into the virgin territory of flyhalf. This change along with 5 others to the 1st team line up from last week meant that it was with mild trepidation that we embarked on our away day to Cheltenham Saracens, one of only 2 unbeaten sides left in the division.

“Don’t worry Stringer, I’ve printed off some directions” how I rue heeding these words from Ginna as we pulled into a Tesco carpark on the site of Cheltenham’s former ground 4 years ago!

Another mistake was listening to Wellsy when I asked whether I needed to turn on the Sat-Nav, “Nahhh…. don’t worry mate, I used to live in Cheltenham, I know exactly where I’m going”.

Needless to say, I shouldn’t have listened to the black toothed philanderer. We finally made it to Cheltenham Saracens 20 minutes before kick-off, sadly the rest of my team only managed to get there 5 minutes before we were due to take the field. I had been looking forward to an extended warm up session to ‘bed-in’ some of the new faces into the team, but hey, thems the breaks!

The game began and we could have been forgiven for a slow start due to our hapless pre-game debacle, thankfully this didn’t happen. Almost straight from the kick-off we had them on the back foot. The forwards were awe inspiring! A dominant scrum and some ferocious crash balls saw us push them back into their 22, the ball was then flung out quickly and a sweeping backs move was rounded off by Joe Laban. 5 nil up with in 5 minutes, Ginna’s indiscretions were now far behind us. The game continued in the same vain for the next 15-20 minutes; they couldn’t cope with us up front and their backs didn’t like the hard straight lines from the Cotham backs. After a succession of breaks from the forwards we ended up deep in their half with ruck on their 22 and an excellent attacking opportunity. When suddenly the ground began to shake; car alarms started ringing, babies started crying, the birds fled from the trees as a booming KIWI BALLLLLLLLLLLL rang out, JB was on the charge. He latched onto a popped pass from Luke and steamed towards the line, the first man in his way was reduced to dust but sadly three more dived into his path. The ensuing breakdown gave the referee just enough time to line himself up perfectly between Luke and the rest of the backs but thankfully a speculative pass was rifled over his head, over my head and into the waiting arms of Joe who carried two of their players over the line for his second try. The kick was again narrowly, well actually quite convincingly, missed so the score was now 10 nil. I’d like to say that this was the start of a domination, but we had a bit of a wobble. We let our discipline slip and the penalty count against us rose, yet again! Some particularly officious refereeing and some questionable decisions were not helping matters. In the period between the 30th and 55th minute we had 3 yellow cards and were at one stage down to 13 men! Luckily our defence was excellent and despite the handicap we only conceded 6 points during this time. Even though the decisions against them were harsh I still think it’s right to mention their names to open them up for public ridicule and punishment. 1st card Alec Vincent, on debut! 2nd John Board and 3rd, as if fly-half problems weren’t great enough, Chilli thought he’d get in on the action.

Anyway, discipline aside, our game play was still good. We were solid in the scrum and the lineouts were good, despite the absence of George ‘drop me on my head please’ Walker. Once we were back to our full complement we knew had to make amends and really push to cement the victory. With the bit between our teeth we drove to their line and set up shop. Some quick ball finally came out and I drove through some hapless defence for the try, Chilli stuck the conversion sweetly and we were now leading 17-6.

This seemed to knock the last bit of wind out of the spirited Cheltenham Saracens and they were clearly deflated. With both sides now tiring and the referee getting a bit fed up the match became increasingly more disjointed. The game drifted slowly towards the final whistle in a mix of silly mistakes, odd penalty decisions and poorly placed backs from both teams. Thankfully there was time for one final highlight. The ball was recycled quickly and shipped out to the backs, some sharp lines of running and an excellent hand off saw Julian decisively finish in the corner.

On reflection it will go down as another win, another high penalty count, but a good victory against a previously unbeaten team, well done boys! If we can cut down our indiscretions we can really start to dominate these teams, this is highlighted by something one of their team said. You know I like to leave you all with a quote, this time from it’s from one of their front rowers who was overheard in the showers.

“Christ they’ll smash us back at their place! They just dicked us with 13 players and they turned up 5 minutes before kick-off!”

Mull that over please gents.

Final score:

Cheltenham Saracens 6 – Cotham Park 22

Tries: Joe Laban (2)

Craig Coulstring

Julian Hoefflin

Conv: Pete Chilcott