Chester 20 Wirral 13: CHESTER broke their Cheshire Cup jinx at Caldy on Saturday when they won the trophy for the first time.

Although the game was not a classic it crackled with tension and held the attention of any neutral spectator who witnessed two teams giving their all.

For long periods of the game Chester held sway and with a degree of composure could have scored more points to take the game away from a Wirral team that battled to the final whistle.

Murray King opened the scoring for Chester when he deftly kicked the ball behind the Wirral defence and won the race for the touchdown. It seemed that Chester would begin to dominate and they did exert great pressure on a creaking Wirral defence. But, even with Colin Ellis, Jimmy Lyle and Richard Hughes all going close, the points would not come.

In fact, it was Wirral who scored when they broke from their own half to score a fine try.

At half time Chester had to make some enforced changes with both Ellis and Kyle Hedges being replaced by Mat Bellamy and Ben Foden.

In the second half, Wirral, after a sustained attack, converted a penalty to give them a three-point lead. This was the spur Chester needed as they quickly began to assert themselves.

After a series of driving mauls, man of the match Gavin Woods scored out wide. Chester went further ahead when Ben Foden broke from the base of the scrum on the half-way line and with a shimmy left the Wirral full-back rooted to the spot to score. King converted and added more points 13.

Chester now led 20-8 and it seemed they would coast to a well-earned victory, but Wirral did not give up and from a blind-side move scored a try to make the score 20-With Chester making more changes - Neil Dowridge on for the irrepressible Jason Goulding and Neil Parsley replacing Steve Johnson - they weathered the Wirral resurgence and ran out winners. with a penalty.