Chew Valley 25 – Avon 14

Playing with the strong wind in the first half, incessant early Chew pressure forced Avon on the defensive and resulted in two successful penalties by scrum half Alex Cameron to take a 6 nil lead. Chew increased this midway through the half with a well constructed blind side try after close inter-passing enabled lock Ross Elliott to crash over in the corner.

At this stage, the pattern for the match was established as Avon functioned well at the set pieces but were outplayed in the loose by an excellent Chew back row unit that had the edge at the breakdowns to allow Valley to dominate possession and territory. Avon tried to spread the ball whenever possible and one counter-attack from Sam Rowlands was switched back to Des Bowden who scorched through a non-existent gap to score an excellent individual try under the posts, converted by Rowlands.

With Cameron adding another penalty, the home side held a seemingly precarious 14 – 7 half time lead when faced with the blustery wind and Avon immediately took advantage from the restart as pressure from Chris Eames forced Chew to concede a 5 metre scrum from which Avon were awarded a penalty try as a powerful surge towards the line was only thwarted by Chew collapsing under the pressure.

With Rowlands adding the easy conversion, Avon were level and seemed on course to stretch ahead but Chew had other ideas with an inspired second half performance that prevented Avon from securing much clean possession or breaking outside their own half. As Chew became more confident, three consecutive forward drives were only halted by outstanding Avon defence on their own line before they scored the decisive try through flanker Darren Jefferies to again take the lead.

Although Avon had a few half chances, wrong options proved their undoing and Cameron added another two late penalties to take away the possibility of a losing bonus point and sparked celebrations from the home side and their vocal supporters.

Avon have no fixture next week and resume their title challenge at home to Midsomer Norton the following week.