Kingswood have never won an opening day fixture in Gloucester 1, and after 30 minutes of this fixture, it looked as though history was once again going to repeat itself.

Kingswood’s last opening day win was a narrow 20-19 home victory over Old Elizabethans back in 2009, so it was clear that Kingswood always have a slow start to the season, but no one was prepared for how this incredible game would unfold.

An excellent guard of honour from the Kingswood Knights gave the home side a morale boost going into this game and Kingswood started brightly. Bristol’s Redford Pennycook and Bryan Rennie were also both in attendance on the sideline. Both teams exchanged penalty kicks to open the scoring, before an early collapse saw the score swing dramatically into Chipping Sodbury’s favour.

In the next 25 minutes, Kingswood were reduced to 14 men after Alex Green received a yellow card for a dangerous tackle, and somehow managed to concede 3 tries, allowing the visitors to run out to a 3-22 lead.

However, once Kingswood’s Backs got their hands on the ball, they started to carve the Chipping Sodbury defence apart. The visitors were themselves reduced to 14 men, creating the space for Kingswood to play some running rugby. Lewis Voisey crossed first, only to have his effort ruled out as held up. No matter though, as from the resulting scrum, Paul Allen crossed over under the posts. Ian Kirley added the extras. Chipping Sodbury then suffered another sin-binning as they started to crack under the pressure. Winger Lewis Voisey was then rewarded for his earlier effort as he crossed in the corner to grab another try for Kingswood to bring the score to 15-22.

With Kingswood’s tails up, the 2nd half continued in much the same vein, and after another great break, Adam Morris went over out wide to make it 3 tries apiece. Ian Kirley again added the conversion and Kingswood had fought back to 22 all.

Kingswood carried on pressing and were awarded 3 more penalties, giving them to opportunity to take (and increase) the lead, however, Ian Kirley was only able to convert 1 of them and the score moved to a slender 25-22 lead for the home side.

Incredibly, Chipping Sodbury were then hit with another 2 yellow cards and this gave Kingswood the chance to keep the pressure on, but this wasn’t what happened.

The visitors rallied, and after a couple of penalty chances, they decided to go for the win, rather than opting for a draw. Knowing they had a slight upper hand in the scrums, Sodbury chose to camp out on Kingswood’s 5 metre line and try to snatch a late winner. However, with the clocking almost up, Sodbury’s eagerness was their undoing and they were penalised for pushing before the ball was put in. Kingswood were awarded a free kick and Paul Allen cleared to touch to secure a narrow victory, much to the relief of the home side.

So a cracking performance from Kingswood on opening day in which they showed great strength of mind to pull back the huge deficit to claim victory.

Welcome back all!

Final Score: Kingswood 25 – 22 Chipping Sodbury