CHIPPENHAM Ladies hosted St Ivel Barbarians for their return league fixture.

Their first meeting earlier in the season was a very close affair but this time around, Chippenham showed their vast improvement through the season. This was underlined by an eight try romp.

The game was totally domianted by the Chippenham forwards who disrupted St Ivel in the scrums and the lineouts giving the backs a good platform to work from. The backs in turn, exploited this to the full.

The first try came from outside centre, Harriett Crockett in the first ten minutes. A break from fly-half Sam Morgan put her through. Crockett scored her second minutes afterwards after a superb running move from the backs.

A switch move from a scrum saw a miss pass out to winger Gemma Turner-Wright who passed back inside to Morgan. A another pass back inside to Crockett totally turned the St Ivel defence inside out. Crockett's third try of the game came shortly after her second and was a fine individual effort.

Further sustained pressure saw the home side with a scrum inside St Ivel's 22 that allowed Chippenham's number eight Leatitia to pick up and drive for the line. Further tries in the first half came from new centre Bani gathering a short pass from Morgan and breaking through the defence to run the length of the pitch for her debut try for the club. Jay Cunningham also added a try and was awarded a penalty try for a high tackle over the try line.

The second half saw increased pressure from the St Ivel Barbarians which gave them a try midway through the half. Chippenham made a few changes for new players to the team, which briefly lost them their composure.

But they quickly recovered and defended well against some good attacking play from St Ivel.

Two further tries in the second half from Morgan who also converted five of the eight tries. New centre Aka showed great strength in driving over for the corner.

Chippenham have three league fixtures left next week travel to Cornwall to play Redruth in the semi-final of The South Shield Cup.

Redruth are currently undefeated in their league which is one above Chippenham and will prove formidable opponents.