MARLOW Rugby Club produced a South West Two upset when they beat joint-leaders Amersham and Chiltern 22-20 at Riverwoods last Saturday.

The fast-improving Riverwoods team put an end to the Chiltern's nine-match winning streak in the league a winning run which stretched back to October.

Marlow started well and took an early lead with a Murray Walker penalty.

But as both sides showed a willingness to use their backs it was Chiltern who scored next with a try from their first attack to make it 7-3 inside the first seven minutes.

Marlow's three props in the front row caused Amersham all sorts of trouble on their own put-in as Al Leithead, Paul Sharp and Dave Vickers sparked a Marlow comeback by taking one against the head deep in Chiltern territory.

Fred Gorringe-Smith picked up to feed Murray Walker and then after an interchange of passes he finished off a slick try.

Amersham came straight back and chucked everything at Marlow who stood firm with some ferocious tackling.

Having withstood that barrage, Marlow came out and dominated the second quarter with lock forward Mark Stevely scoring a brace of tries to put Marlow 22-7 up at the turnaround.

The inevitable second half fightback came, and Amersham's fullback Dave Richardson came into his own using the stiff breeze to kick some huge touch finders.

But it wasn't until the last ten minutes that Amersham started closing the points gap with tries on 70 and 78 minutes to set up a nailbiting finale.

Amersham looked as though they might have completed their fightback when Dave Richardson attempted a drop goal in injury time, but the ball sailed the wrong side of the posts from an Amersham point of view.