Walcountians slide to defeat in the wet

The Counts’ growing injury list meant they took the field without the services of two key forwards in Dom Bell and Joe McMullen, and last season’s top try scorer, Marvin Fletcher-Rogers. There was little to separate the two sides in the first half as both made errors as they struggled to hold a slippery ball. The nearest either side came to scoring in the first half was in the 26th minute when Walcountians’ centre Ross Norton was wide with an attempted penalty.

The second half saw both Walcountians and Chipstead resort to keeping the ball tight and with the forwards. Solid defensive tackling and rucking by Walcountians kept Chipstead at bay but, on the 16th minute, it was Chipstead who made the breakthrough when their fly-half put up a steepling kick which the Walcountians defence failed to field cleanly and let in the visitors for a converted try.

Walcountians had the greater share of the ball in the final quarter as they rallied aggressively in an attempt to overturn Chipstead’s lead but, despite strong driving play by the pack, the visitors were able to hang onto their lead.

Next Saturday, Walcountians begin their Surrey Shield campaign when they take on Surrey League 2 opponents Old Rutlishians at Clock House. Kick-off is at 3pm.

Old Walcountians:- Hardman, Oldfield, Norton, Wrightson, Vadivelu, Bentley, Chmielinski, Evans, Abou-Zeid, Claustres, Thornton, Thomas, Fleming, Housden, Henderson.

Subs:- Adams, Bellringer, Houghton.