Chingford carried their good form into the New Year with a hard fought 31-7 victory over Cheshunt.

The match was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests and only a purple patch of devastating attacking rugby in the last ten minutes of the first half put daylight between the sides and Chingford had to strain every sinew to restrict Cheshunt to a solitary second half try.

From the kick off the visitors were put under immediate pressure from the Chingford Pack and conceded a scrum on their five-metre line from a knock on and were duly punished further when Chingford Captain Andreas Constantinou forced the ball over the line for the opening try to give the home team the lead.

Cheshunt responded well drove Chingford back deep into their own half and were awarded two penalties which the home team did well to deny the visitors. Despite their best efforts Chingford were unable to get their passing together and the next 10 minutes were characterised by repeated handing errors and poor decision making.

Then from a quickly taken line out Shahan Ahmet & Ethan Penford combined well to sweep up the pitch and nearly scored.

This seemed to spark Chingford into life and they finally dusted off their New Year cobwebs and as if they flicked a switch produced a monstrous blitz of attacking power rugby that tore Cheshunt apart and were they unable to withstand the avalanche that came their way.

First a flowing move involving half the team enabled Andreas Constantinou to score his 2nd try of the day, next Joe Bragg-Welling was put in by Shahan Ahmet to score.

Centre Josh Oranu-Noah was at his rampaging best leading the backs as they perfectly complemented the forwards power and dominance fast flowing rugby and Cheshunt were forced into give away a penalty from which a clever team move ended with flanker Dan Linton going over to score the third try in a devastating 10 minute spell to make the score with three out of four conversions from Connor Hurst 26-0 at half time.

In the 2nd half Chingford make several changes to give some development players a run out.

One of them was Mitchell Boyd making his first appearance which he marked by making a fantastic tackle on the Cheshunt winger, but unfortunately such was his commitment that he injured himself in the process and was unable to continue.

But despite this setback the Chingford replacements were able to match whatever Cheshunt threw at them and despite a cock up amongst the Chingford backs to allow Cheshunt to pull the score back to 26-5 they swept up the pitch and turned over a Cheshunt line out and nearly scored but the ball was held up on the line.

From the resulting scrum No. 8 Bobby Edwards drove over to score a deserved try.

As if in reply a fine run from the Cheshunt number eight found his way through the Chingford lines but a try saving tackle by William Mays 15 metres out kept the score unchanged and the game finished 31-7 to Chingford.

So, a splendid start to 2014 by Chingford and a date with destiny awaits at Sudbury on Jan 26th where victory will virtually guarantee Chingford a deserved promotion to Division Two.

At his post-match press conference Chingford supremo Lawrence Macides expressed his pride in how the far the team have come in the past 12 months and their reward is within their reach.

“The boys played some fantastic rugby today and Cheshunt were unable to cope.

"Everyone was excellent today but I would like to single out Man of the Match Shahan Ahmet who gave an inspirational performance which lifted his teammate to new heights”