Fylde travel to Hare Lane on Saturday to meet Chester RUFC in the penultimate game of the 2021-22 season (ko 15.00), extraordinarily only their third ever visit to the ground in 1st XV league competition. Chester are comfortably in mid-table 9th spot whilst Fylde retain 5th place despite recent defeats.
For two well established North West clubs, it’s surprising that since the establishment of leagues in the 1980s that the respective 1st XVs hadn’t met before the 2018-19 season.
Fylde notched a notable 5-16 win at Hare Lane in November 2018, the first defeat suffered there by the home team in a season and a half but lost at the Woodlands by 19-27 in March 2019. The 2019-20 season saw Fylde notch a double over their North West neighbours, winning 42-17 at the Woodlands and a rather extraordinary 15-51 at Hare Lane in February 2020. The Lancastrians had a clear 40-10 victory at the Woodlands just before Christmas this season.
In the period from 2002 until 2013, Chester were almost always competing in North One, level 5 in the RFU league structure. They had an outstanding campaign in 2012-13 when they finished as champions of National Three (North) and were promoted to National Two (North). They have performed very well since then, finishing 5th, 5th, 11th, 5th, 7th, 2nd and 6th in 2019-20. The Club was one of many beneficiaries of the RFU’s huge investment in 4G pitches throughout England. Fylde will appreciate playing on such a surface to suit their running game.
This season has been rather uneven for Chester, with 12 victories and 16 defeats to date. A very tough opening set of fixtures put them on the back foot. Successive defeats – at home to Hull Ionians (14-29) and Stourbridge (27-36) and at Hull RUFC (31-10) – were followed by five wins in the next six fixtures. Hare Lane has proved a very hard place for visiting clubs in recent seasons. This campaign has been rather different and has followed an interesting pattern. Chester have lost five home matches to date, all against top six opponents. Indeed, they have lost another five matches against these clubs away from home.
Chester’s Head Coach is the very well known and respected former player Jan van Deventer and he has a very stable squad of players. The power of the Chester pack has been amply demonstrated in recent seasons. The try scoring records of principal forwards such as no 8 Guy Ford speak for themselves.
Player/Coach Ford is one of the most experienced and influential players in the squad and has made over 200 appearances for the Club. He previously had spells with Bradford & Bingley and Otley and has extensive representative honours for Cheshire.
He is usually joined in the backrow by the powerful flanker George Baxter whilst in the engine room are powerful locks Jimmy Lloyd (formerly a stalwart at Sedgley Park), George Spalding and skipper Harry Wilkinson. A strong front row roster includes props Joshua Woods, Tom Furnival, Rhodrey Parry, Wade Williams and hooker Scott Robson.
The well established backline features Welsh newcomer at fullback Gethin Long (formerly with Bethesda), experienced centre Sean Green and the very dangerous centre, wing or fly-half Iwan Phillips, selected in December as N2N’s Player of the Week by the National League.
The halfbacks are usually playmaker and goal kicking fly-half Liam Reeve and former Sedgley Park (and Maltese international!) scrum-half Tom Holloway. The very experienced Reeve has had a particularly successful season as a kicker and is in 3rd place in the N2N ranking with 192 points to date behind leader Greg Smith on 261.
Whoever make up the Chester squad on Saturday, there’s no doubt that they will be extremely motivated in their last home match and will ask serious questions of a Fylde squad who will have to pick themselves up after the agonising defeat against leaders Hull RUFC last Saturday.
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Fylde make two changes in their starting line-up for the trip to Chester (ko 15.00). Ben Turner is named at fullback and Charlie Partington at blindside flanker, replacing the unavailable Tom Carleton and Harlan Corrie respectively. Alex Clayton joins the replacements.
Fylde need 9 points to break the 1,000 barrier for the season, a feat they haven’t achieved since their championship winning season in 2010-11. They average 35 points per game during this campaign.
[Photos courtesy of Adam Gee]
