CHIPPENHAM'S win secured them home ground advantage for the play off on April 30 which will determine whether they delve into the uncharted waters of South West One.

Spartans (SW) look the likely visitors to Allington Field for the pivotal contest, but on Saturday Chippenham had to perform away from home at Wimborne, and the game did not start in the visitors' favour.

Within two minutes Chippenham scrum-half Andy Williamson was caught by the Wimborne number nine at the scrum base and from the pilfer, the home side drove over to score.

The nightmare start continued minutes later when a pass went to ground in the midfield and was gathered by the Wimborne centre. He put a lovely accurate cross field kick into the path of his winger who gathered the ball and crossed the line to score.

The sides traded missed penalties and after 20 minutes, Chippenham scored an outstanding try to open their account. Centre Gary Champion released full-back Martin who drew in the defence. He passed to Darren McMillan who ran into score and it was 10-10 when Williamson released winger Ryan Surry.

Wimborne were reduced to 14 men when their scrum-half was sent to the sin bin for illegal use of the boot and the Chippenham forwards stepped up, driving their counterparts back towards their own line led by prop Karl Parry-Curtis and number eight Jon Whiteman.

The ball was then moved wide and centre David Spiers cut a hole in the Wimborne defence to score under the posts. The conversion was added by Williamson and, as half-time approached, another excellent break by Spiers put McMilan into space to score his second try of the match turning a 10-0 deficit to a 10-22 lead at half-time.

Wimborne missed a penalty five mintues into the second half and Chippenham replied by scoring their fifth try on 58 minutes.

With the Wimborne forwards backpedalling in a driving maul, Parry-Curtis broke off blind unopposed to score. Williamson added the conversion and Chippenham were home and hosed despite a late Wimborne consolation.

Chippenham's second team fielded current members of their youth development squad, four from the colts/U18s and four players from last year's U18s in this Merit Table clash.

The first of six came from Matt Spurway which was converted by Chris Hunt. Further first half tries came from Matt Jenkins and a senior debut try from Chris Hunt, which he also converted.

This gave Chippenham a very comfortable 0-19 lead at half-time and, after the restart, it was more of the same. Both Spurway and Jenkins scored their second tries of the match with contributions from Nick Burroughs, converted by Tim Dunford.