On a beautiful early spring afternoon and following Curtain raiser games by the U14’s and U10’s against a Touring Aylesford U14’s team and Chelmsford U10’s respectively and the observance of a minutes silence for Life Member John Adler who sadly passed away last week Brentwood 1st XV played Chelmsford RFC in a London 1 North fixture, a game that they were expected to win comfortably, bearing in mind the terrible season that the opposition have suffered, following a never ending run of bad luck with injuries.

Brentwood started the game up the hill and were looking to play open fast rugby but were thwarted by numerous scrum resets and injury breaks but when able to they managed some fine passing rugby with tries coming from Henry Bird, Declan Gillett, Henry Galligan, Sam Cappaert and Josh Stannard with Henry Bird converting 4 giving a half time lead of 33- 0.

Now playing down the slope and with Chelmsford tiring and taking knocks Brentwood were now in free flowing form with the ball being spread wide at every opportunity 57 points were scored from positions all over the field with the ball being moved through many pairs of hands to find a man in support to run it in.

It was pleasing to the Brentwood Coaches that out of the 14 tries 12 were scored by the backs especially as Brentwood have mainly been known to be a forward oriented team.

2nd half tries were scored by Henry Galligan 2, Josh Stannard 2, Adam Thomas, Ben Amato, Jack Richards and Harry Chambers 2 with 4 conversions for Henry Bird and 1 each for Sam Cappaert and Harry Chambers.

The Davlav Man of the Match went to Hooker Jack Richards who without the benefit of having No. 2 on his shirt would have been mistaken for one of the backs with the amount of open field running and tackling. He was pushed close by the performance of scum half Henry Galligan who had a fine game all round.

Chelmsford battled bravely throughout and never gave up and Brentwood wish them all the best next Season.

Next week Brentwood take on bottom Club Barking and know they have to keep up the momentum to go into the last 2 games against leaders Tring and 3rd placed Chingford if they are to maintain their position of 2nd place and make the play-offs.