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Darren McMillan

Marlow 17, Chippenham 22

NEWLY crowned champions Chippenham ended the season with a last gasp win which relegated Marlow from South West Two East.

The scoreline stood at 17-3 to the home side with just seven minutes left on the clock, but at the end of 80 minutes, the final scoreline was 17-23 to Chippenham.

For Chippenham coach John Rumble the final result was a relief from a very lacklustre performance from Chippenham.

He said: "This was not our best performance of the season and it was difficult to motivate the players after the celebrations of last week, winning the league.

"Marlow were in a relegation battle and needed to win to stay up. They were on top for the majority of the game but at the final whistle, they were down."

Chippenham scored three tries in the space of five minutes to snatch victory at the death.

Chippenham were the first to put points on the board with a penalty kick by fullback Karl Brant which was cancelled out by a successful penalty kick by Marlow.

Marlow added another penalty five minutes later as the champions were penalised for not releasing and a further penalty after Chippenham were caught offside gave Marlow a 9-3 advantage.

For the second week running, Chippenham had a player sent to the sin-bin as a team punishment for persistent offending. The unlucky player was centre Gary Champion who received his second yellow card in as many weeks.

The first half belonged to Marlow, who played with conviction and urgency, knowing that only a win would ease their relegation worries.

Chippenham, on the other hand, appeared to find it hard to motivate themselves or play with any kind of shape and rhythm.

The second half saw Marlow score the first try of the game, their centre touching down in the right-hand corner for an unconverted try to extend their lead.

But after this, Chippenham began to gradually get back into the game as the efforts of playing with such conviction took its toll on the home side and they began to tire.

The league champions' first try came from a set line-out move which saw Ade Price touch down to score an unconverted try.

Minutes later replacement Tom Boreham broke up the right wing. The ball went through several hands to the waiting centre Rupert Crockett and he crossed the line for the try which was ably converted by Brant.

From the restart, Marlow looked nervous as there was just two minutes left.

In the very dying seconds of the game winger Darren McMillan broke away and a chip and chase which he won, saw him touch down in the corner for the killer try.

2:43pm Wednesday 23rd April 2008

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