Chelmsford’s run of seven consecutive league victories came to an end on Saturday against Enfield at Donkey Lane, where they have lost for the past four seasons.

Enfield deserved their win against a below par Chelmsford side, who were missing three key players in full back Simon Hoult, hooker Seth Robinson and number eight and skipper, Paul Redford.

Within five minutes of the start, Chelmsford were 12-0 down, mainly because they were caught cold and found wanting in the tackling stakes.

A catch and drive saw scrum half Jordan Wilson score near the corner and with the try being converted by himself, Enfield went into an early 5-0 lead.

Then just three minutes later, number eight Wes Warren burst through the cover defence in the centre of the field and he slipped the ball to centre Keir Bonnar who scored a well worked try.

Chelmsford managed to steady the boat for a 15-minute period and came back strongly when fly half Rhys Mason chipped a ball over the Enfield cover defence and a favourable bounce saw him regain possession and with full back Seb Hill in support, Mason slipped the ball to Hill and he strode away for a try under the posts to reduce the arrears to 12-7.

Immediately from the kick-off Enfield regained possession and with Chelmsford’s cover defence drifting to the left side of the field, full back Dan Savagar cut back inside for a clear run to the posts and with Jordan Wilson converting the try, the lead was increased to 19-7.

At this stage, Enfield gave away a series of penalties and the referee lost his patience and sent Richard Laurence to the sin bin.

With play near to Enfield’s line, and half time drawing near, Chelmsford mounted a series of attacks on Enfield’s line, but they were thwarted when they were penalised, so lost the momentum.

Enfield kicked off for the second half and with Chelmsford making an error once again, Enfield’s wing, Tan Mbonu, fly hacked the ball on deep into Chelmsford’s half.

Enfield were now pressurising Chelmsford into mistakes and they gave away a series of penalties.

Mounting pressure in the corner resulted in Dan Savagar scoring his second try and with Jordan Wilson converting, the score was now 26-7 to the hosts.

Wilson then slotted home a penalty goal to bring the score to 29-7. Chelmsford were now hanging on and it was no surprise when Enfield scored their fifth try when Keir Bonnar ran through some flimsy defence to score his second try, duly converted by Jordan Wilson to take the score to 36 -7.

Chelmsford did manage to stem the tide and counter attack strongly and they were rewarded with two late tries, the first through centre Guthrie Holliday, which was converted by Rhys Mason to take the score to 36-14 and then at the end of the game Seb Hill kicked ahead into Enfield’s 22 and some good play resulted in second row Nick Sany to score a try out wide.