Western Counties North

Whitehall 9

Cirencester 26

IMPROVING Cirencester came from 9-0 down to claim victory in a must-win game at Bristol-based Whitehall.

The conditions were cold but the pitch was sound underfoot.

The game started in a scrappy fashion with both defences on top.

The difference was that the home side had more territory and boasted a monster kicker who took advantage of any infringement to put his side 9-0 up through three penalties.

Cirencester fielded a changed side from the previous week and this led to a lack of cohesion in their play.

Eventually they did put some phases together which resulted in Ollie Newman finding a gap in the defence to score a well-worked try, with Adam Barker kicking the conversion.

This score galvanised Cirencester who were suddenly doing everything with more purpose and pace, as they kept the ball better and asked many more questions of the Whitehall defence.

Carmine Urti, Ciren's energetic winger, then produced his debut first XV try, latching on to a pass and sprinting 30 metres to score under the posts. Barker added the conversion to give Ciren a 14-9 lead.

The loyal away supporters were now full of optimism that this could be the Red and Black's first away win of the season.

The second half began with a lot of play taking place in the middle of the pitch.

Ciren, who had lost two players to injury in the first half, knew they had to dig in to win the game especially as centre Dave Evans had been yellow-carded.

This they duly did, with another try coming from workhorse prop Aaron Lockitt, who latched on to to a hack through before crashing over.

The successful conversion took the score to 21-9 in favour of the visitors, whose task was then to see out the game.

Whitehall rallied but time and again they were thwarted by a strong Ciren defence, with Matt Berry having an outstanding game.

Meanwhile, Luke Newman was putting himself about and tackling way above his weight.

The icing on the Cirencester cake came in the final minutes with a flowing move which saw Scott Cannon feed Andy Field who crashed over in the corner to complete the bonus-point win.

Two Man of the Match awards were issued to the Newman brothers, Ollie and Luke.

Director of rugby Andy Deacon was delighted with the spirit and all-round team performance, particularly how all the players dug in for the full 80 minutes.

This weekend they welcome Yatton to The Whiteway with a 2.15 kick-off.