Peace puts Mowden on promotion warpath

CHESTER went into this match lying second in National Three North, but they were second best by a long distance to a Mowden team who can now challenge for promotion.

Mowden trail their visitors by six points with a game in hand and on this evidence the deficit can easily be overhauled with 13 games left.

The greater challenge will be to catch the team now lying second, Bradford and Bingley, who Mowden still have to visit.

The long break means the season is only at the halfway stage, but with no gaps left in the fixture list those with strong squads will prevail.

Mowden’s strength was underlined by their bench, plus the fact that centre Chris Peace looked a class act on his first start.

A product of Sedbergh School and the Tynedale club, he played in Mowden’s sevens team last summer and decided to make the switch, only to suffer a knee injury in a preseason match.

He showed deceptive pace in strolling over from 40 metres for the second try and had a hand in the other two, while Gavin Painter added two excellent conversions after opening the scoring with a simple penalty.

Playing downwind, Chester enjoyed 20 minutes of first half pressure but never looked like breaching a formidable defence. Every time they turned the ball back inside the receiver ran straight into a shuddering tackle.

There can be no stronger front row in this division than Mowden’s.

A couple of line-out throws missed their target, but on top of his work in the tight skipper Danny Brown varied his duties skilfully between covering back and handling in attack.

Similarly, prop Ralph Appleby was as adept at giving well-timed passes as at gaining the hard yards, and the front row strength was further underlined when the fearsome Kaiwaidau Simione went on for the last 15 minutes.

As Mowden’s priority is to develop young players, it will be interesting to see whether coach Pete Taylor continues to select himself now they have emerged as genuine promotion candidates. Presumably, he will pick his games.

It was clear very early on that Mowden were the better side and Painter put them ahead after four minutes.

They had to spend most of the next half hour defending, which they did without any alarms, then lively scrum half Todd Harrison took a quick penalty on halfway.

He made good ground before Brown and Peace took it on and the visiting open side was sin-binned for killing the ball.

Painter missed the penalty but Mowden took full advantage of their one-man advantage to score two tries.

Centre Ben Snook made a half break, Brown and Peace were again in support and the latter’s pass sent left winger Matt Lister over in the corner.

Four minutes later a Chester clearance was fielded near the right touchline, Taylor set up a ruck and when the ball was moved left Peace ghosted through the defence and kept going to the left corner.

With the wind dropping, Chester might have felt they could claw back the 15-0 deficit when they landed a penalty five minutes after the break.

But their hopes were quickly dashed when Mowden attacked from halfway.

The ball was moved left, with Appleby and Peace prominent, and Robin Eatough, who had come across from the right wing, chipped over the full back to score in the corner.

Painter’s conversion completed the scoring, the only disappointment for Mowden being their failure to earn the four-try bonus point.

But officials were delighted with what they felt was the best performance of the season.