CHIPPENHAM recovered from a poor start to maintain their excellent South West Two East form with a narrow 18-16 victory at Stow-on-the-Wold.

The Wiltshire side trailed by 13 points at the interval, but recovered to steal a hard-fought triumph as fly-half Trevor Lloyd slotted a last-minute drop-goal.

They started badly when they were penalised after a poorly-executed penalty move.

A lack of communication in the centre of the team then resulted in a Stow try and the conversion was kicked.

Chippenham equalised with a penalty of their own from Lloyd, but were then on the wrong end of a series of infringements

A series of penalties were awarded to the home side and all three were kicked to leave the visitors trailing at the break.

The second half however, saw Chippenham beginning to wake up.

Stow had a player sin-binned and Chippenham took advantage to run a well-executed back row move.

It ended with the ball being touched down by openside flanker Scott Sherratt, but the conversion was missed.

Chippenham then scored a second try when scrum-half Tim Dunford broke free.

He released Sherratt for his second of the match, with fly-half Lloyd adding the conversion.

Then, with just two minutes remaining, Lloyd slotted over the drop goal to seal Chippenham's victory.