Chippenham carried on from where they left off against Marlow, producing some of their worst rugby before clinching a 27-24 victory in Saturday's South West Division 2 East encounter at Allington Field.

After a bruising first half they eventually turned it around with a thrilling comeback to clinch the points in the dying minutes.

With only one enforced change to the side that lost the previous week, Gary Squires replacing the injured Royston Davies in the back row, Chippenham were looking to bounce back but it was Redingensians who made the better start.

After falling behind to a penalty, Chippenham held the lead briefly in the first half with a fine individual try from centre Rupert Crockett. From then on though it was one-way traffic as Redingensians, belying their lowly league status, raced into a 24-5 lead courtesy of two well- worked tries and some accurate place kicking from their fly-half.

Chippenham were clearly rattled and could have been out of the game were it not for a well-taken try by winger Darren McMillan on the stroke of half-time which kept them in it.

Harsh words at half-time from coaches Pete Beazer and Dilwyn Richardson had the desired effect though and the fightback started as Chippenham visibly upped the pace of the game.

Redingensians defended well and it wasn't until midway through the half that Chippenham finally broke through as full-back Trevor Lloyd found room to slip through and score.

With Reynolds converting and then adding a penalty kick minutes later the lead was cut to 24-20.

As the pressure mounted Chippenham came close on a number of occaisions but disaster struck with the sin-binning of veteran winger Joscelyn Barnes for retaliation.

It looked as though this may have put paid to Chippenham's hopes as the game entered the final minutes. But the 14 men continued to pound the Redingenisans line and eventually prop Bob Stevens brushed off two tacklers to score under the posts and clinch a nail-biting win.