The weekend saw us regain some composure after the poor performance at Spartans where Clevedon were beaten by a far more physical and aggressive set of forwards. Some poor finishing by our own backs and probably one of the bigger factors, the intimidation of the home team and their supporters.

This week saw seven starting line up changes to the side, an awful lot by any standard, Neil Bridle came into the back row at 7, James Shopland at 8, Piers Hopkins in the second row and Dan Filby at 9, also a change with Tom Thie moving in field to centre after last weeks experiment of Ashley Vailes playing in the centre, Vailes moved out one to play on one wing, Si Johns also came back into the side on the other wing. We also saw Ben stone return via the bench.

The first half was one of frustration really the boys knowing they could beat this Cheltenham side but having to have the self-confidence to do it and get used to the changes, the first wholesale ones really this season. After some bad results over the last three weeks, especially the Reading Abbey game where our finishing let us down again when we were by far the better team we needed a bit of a break.

Belief and confidence are wonderful and these are the building blocks which lead to greater things, they started to emerge, our tackling was much better than the previous week and the effect of Bridle and Hopkins knocking players back in the tackle was a pleasure to see and devastating to the opposition, it inspired others, Thie looked solid in midfield although you still felt things looked tentative outside of thirteen on occasions with a couple of poor options being taken when we should of scored. Filby also added a bossiness to the forwards and made demands of them that on occasions are needed. However, when you are trying too hard, as we did against Reading, a pass goes wrong, this time Hawkes threw a wide pass which was intercepted after a period of good pressure. Hawkes was making tackles in the ten's channel and in fairness he has been in most games this season, however, he sometimes misses the support of a back row, but he got it this week, Shopland as ever the dynamo around the park. Our lineouts got better and better as the game went on once Hopkins, Morgan and Bridle had got used to things. I also felt as it went on we needed to be patient but were rushing things, this showed when the opposition had a line out ten metres from our line and for some reason we decided to contest the jump instead of sacking, the result, a formality, a driving maul and push over try. Unfortunately, no matter how many times it's said "you must play like you're told and practice at set pieces" not as you want. Out behind we also took several wrong options close to the line after some cracking starter handling. Fortunately we had the boot of Hawkes to rely on as we have many times already this season and one simple shot if there is such a thing and one from distance kept us in the game, at halftime we turned 12 points to 6 down really we could have been two tries and two penalties up.

At half time we talked about turnovers really and the fact we were giving them points by our mistakes, we had to be patient, we are good enough, we were creating chances we had to take them, the quality is there. Play as fifteen and for each other.

It seemed to do the trick our tacklers kept stepping up and the confidence grew, Filby continued to talk well and was starting to look for gaps, he, when he plays well always has his head up before he touches the ball, today was one of those days. We needed to score first we did through Hopkins a quick free kick saw us go over in the corner, a conversion form on the touchline the wrong side for the left footer was a formality. We were right back in it, another try would finish them off hopefully I thought but we had to earn it, Cheltenham are no mugs and will beat somebody this season, I didn't want it to be us. The introduction of Barnes and Stone looked to give the forwards the boost they needed and before long we had gone through some good hands and a break to set Johns off who looked a better player for his rest, he in turn fed Tucker out of the tackle who scored. The kick was missed but we now had that cushion, unfortunately we sat back a little and a desperate Cheltenham side again pushed us hard. We may have been kicking a little to much from the base of the scrum but we put them under pressure and this eventually resulted in a kick being fielded by their outside half and him being ankle tapped by Hawkes over his line, this resulted in him spilling the ball and Barnes like any good back row following up and getting the touch down to finish Cheltenham off.

The conversion was good from Hawkes and the result was just what the players deserved after a lot of hard work. This saw the end for us to the first half of the season a double over a side that will win games before the end of the season, a reminder to all that played I hope that, "you have to earn it" but you also deserve it. We have more points than we did this time last season and now the hard work starts again, sides will know what we can and cannot do and we will have to adapt to get it right.

Well done guys, role on 2006, Happy Christmas and New Year X