Clifton v Dursley

We racked up 50 points in a game for the fourth time this season and remain unbeaten after this friendly match at home to Dursley.

There were 8 tries in all with some tremendous handling for the first and last tries in particular. It was at times champagne rugby and it looked like the boys really enjoyed it.

So it was perhaps a little harsh to dish out some sobering opinions after the game about such minor things as getting involved in rucks.

True we were often on the backfoot at the breakdown as Dursley put numbers into the rucks, but scrum-half Luke bravely managed to get the ball away on a number of occasions as his own players’ studs came flying towards him.

Then we put in some great passages of play with backs and forwards stringing together passes.

One of the Dursley coaches said he counted 19 tackles made by his team in the lead-up to our last try. That’s testament to their resilience and to the great recycling and offloads by us in that series of phases.

We shouldn’t forget that we’ve not conceded much this year, and we were again outstanding with our scramble defence. The whole team deserves credit as Dursley created a number of chances which we managed to snuff out by determined tracking back.

Perhaps one moment that summed this up was when prop Louis set after one of their speedy backs who had made a great break. Louis would admit he was unlikely to catch him. But his never-say-die attitude was rewarded when their back was slowed enough by a tackler to allow Louis to get his quarry with an all-enveloping tackle.

The boys put in a huge amount of effort in what was a fast-paced and open match. We only had 16 players available to start with and were left no substitutes to call upon after Monty was injured just minutes into the game. It meant there were some tired bodies afterwards.

So the facts and figures: we scored eight tries and converted 6 of them (some from tricky positions) – well done to our kicker Elliott. They scored one converted try. Final score: 52-7.

Our tries were scored by Ben (2), Sam Read (3), Dominic, Shane and Dougie.

Well done to erstwhile back-row players Herbie, George and Callum who had to step into the backline because of absences and showed their all-round rugby skills.

But with a hat-trick of tries of some crucial last-ditch tackles this week’s man of the match award goes to centre Sam Read.

Hamish