Chippenham travelled to Cleve expecting a tough match and that is exactly what they encountered.

As anticipated, Cleve were well drilled and well disciplined and during the first half, Chippenham struggled to contain their back row who shipped the ball wide and had several good scoring opportunities.

Jenkins, Hatch and Taylor made some excellent last-ditch tackles, as did Cutler before he was taken off midway through the first half following an accidental blow to his face.

However, Cleve continued to push forward and put over two tries, one of which was converted before the referee blew the whistle for half-time.

Following some tough talking by the Chippenham coaches, the players took to the field for the second half, fired up and determined to try and redress the balance. The forwards were much quicker to the breakdown and started to turn over some of the Cleve scrums and lineouts.

The back started to move the ball around well, keeping it mobile and creating several good chances of their own. However, whenever Cleve were in possession of the ball, they looked dangerous and a third try eventually followed, again converted.

A possible fourth was judged to have been held up following some solid defence work by the Chippenham forwards.

But Chippenham did not give up and started to apply their own pressure.

Some good linking work between forwards and backs saw Chippenham come close to scoring but Cleve managed to hold on.