Western Counties North

Wellington 14 Chew Valley 17

A BATTLING performance earned Wellington a losing bonus point at home to a strong Chew Valley side on Saturday.

Due to the ever-growing injury list, Wellington fielded what must have been their youngest ever first XV on Saturday with 12 of the starting 15 being 21 or under.

Chew Valley sit third in the league and are known to play an expansive style of rugby so an exciting match was anticipated, and so it proved.

Playing up the slope in the first half, Wellington spent long periods in their opponents half, with Harry Ramsay carrying well.

During one of their rare forays into the Wellington half, Chew were awarded a penalty in front of the posts and fly-half Chris Holley slotted the kick to take the lead for the visitors.

The game ebbed and flowed at a fast pace with both sides keen to play rugby but also making handling errors as space opened up.

Towards the end of the half Wellington were finding it hard to break out of their 22 as they got stuck in club house corner.

Eventually, the pressure told and Richard Pollett exploited some confusion in the defensive line to cross for the opening try of the afternoon.

Holley converted to make it 10-0 at half-time.

After the break, Chew Valley exerted the early pressure using a series of rolling mauls to make inroads and eventually score wide out.

Holley was again on target to open up a 17-0 lead.

With such a young side, and without their skipper and coach on the field, heads could have dropped.

On the contrary, skipper-for-the-day Paddy Jarman rallied his troops and started to apply pressure.

The pack in particular started to exert pressure at scrum time, and when they turned over possession deep in the visitors 22 Jarman dinked a little kick over the top which was caught by George Hodgson who dived over the line.

Tom Hawkings added the extras.

It wasn’t long before Wellington were back on the attack against a tiring Chew team, and Jack Woodland broke off the back of a maul to dive over.

Hawkings again converted and with five minutes to go it was game on.

A couple of handling errors prevented Welly gaining any field position, however and eventually time ran out.

Although it was disappointing to lose, the young team showed great character to come back from 17-0 down against a team that have only lost twice this year.

Next week sees the Chiefs travel to Stroud who are unbeaten at home this campaign.

Wellington remain in ninth place in Western Counties West, two points clear of the bottom three, having won four and lost eight so far this season.

They kick off 2016 with a trip to Gloucester to face Chosen Hill Former Pupils on January 2 before hosting Bristol-based Barts Rugby the following weekend (January 9).