Saracens slaughter is just the right tonic (From Gazette Series)

Saracens slaughter is just the right tonic

Cheltenham Saracens 5 Dursley 34

Dursley travelled to Cheltenham for this friendly having endured two weeks of indifferent rugby which saw them beat local rivals Wotton to a place in the Stroud Combination Junior Cup Final and then lose a closely fought league game at Westbury-on-Severn.

The latter game represented two vital points lost in a season that started well but has seen the maroon and yellows slide from joint top to fifth place. It was vital that Dursley got away to a good start and with a couple of key players missing they had fresh blood filling some important shoes and brought in a few positional changes.

Dursley scored first after a shaky kick off as the forwards started to press home their superior strength and skill to work the ball forward, allowing the evergreen Tony Powell to dummy his way through, feed Andy Jones, who drew his man, to then put Ian Brown away for the first try.

Minutes later, similar ground made by the strong running Adam Siolo and Graham Dakin allowed new scrum half Matt Bilous to feed Dursley's Player of the Year Mark Perry a good ball to score under the posts. Powell duly converted. Next on the scoresheet was young Tony Nibblet. The youngster danced and jinked his way to the line to score.

The first half scoring was ably finished off with some slick handling in the backs between Trevor Scott and Mike Hill, the latter playing his first first team game for some years. The ball was chipped over the defence and collected for a score.

At 22-0 up, Dursley's famous defence went walkabout to allow Saracens a soft try to turn around at 22-5.

With the wind in their backs and after a stern half-time talk, Saracens started the second half much the stronger and really tested Dursley's defensive line. Captain Nick Hull led from the front with some ferocious tackling and with the upper hand in the set pieces due to the experienced front row of Darren Noble, Benny Price and Greg Allen, Dursley started to take back control of the game. Having been disallowed a try in the first half, Benny was not going to let anyone stop him when the forwards set up a 'catch and drive' from a lineout 10 yards out.

Midway through the half Dursley were down to 14 men - not through the obligatory yellow card they seem to attract, but through the near fatal injury to fly half Powell.

Luckily, the injury was not as bad as first thought but it was left to centre Brown to finish the game in that position. Right on full-time winger Mike Crawford was put in space and with the try line 80 metres away, swerved past his opposite number, pinned his ears back and touched down under the posts.

Brown added the conversion after some delay and the final whistle signalled Dursley as the winners by 34-5.

This was just the tonic needed after some indifferent results of late and Dursley will now need to take some of this form away with them when they travel to Eastern Europe next weekend to take on some international opponents in Prague.