Gloucester Premier

Dursley 16 St Mary’s Old Boys 19

DURSLEY lost to the last kick of the game against St Mary’s Old Boys.

The home side started much the brighter of the two teams and quickly went three points and then six points ahead from the boot of fly half Grant Boucher following sustained pressure in the Old Boys 22.

The Dursley pack were dominant for the first 20 minutes, making repeated forays into Old Boys territory and putting the defenders under real pressure.

The front row of George Salter, Alex Budd and Tom Crosby, with an average age of just 19, held out superbly against much bigger opposition, and the driving force of Paul Smith and captain Scott Udal were exceptional.

The tide turned though midway through the first half and Old Boys managed to come back into the game following a sin binning for Dursley’s Simon Camm ten minutes before the break. The first half ended all even at 6-6.

The second half started much the same as the first half ended with a well balanced game; good running rugby from Dursley and then good forwards pressure from the much larger Old Boys pack.

Dursley were guilty of running back into the opposition pack too many times and were turned over a little too often.

There was some excellent play by scrum half Arron Lennard who mixed the play up beautifully all afternoon with box kicks and his passing game.

It was Dursley that broke the deadlock eventually though.

After another period of concerted pressure the ball broke for Boucher to construct a beautifully crafted kick through for winger Bradley Winchle to chase and score in the corner, taking Dursley into a 14-9 lead.

Boucher took the conversion from the touch line and struck it sweetly for an outstanding two points.

This spurred Dursley on and they became the dominant force again, penetrating time and again into Old Boys territory but unable to convert the pressure into points.

Eventually one pass too many gave Old Boys the chance to intercept and after some good interplay between their forwards and backs they managed to score under the posts and even the scores again.

Dursley were able to go ahead one more time with a further Boucher penalty but that was to be their last.

Old Boys levelled it one more time before the late agony for Dursley.

Boucher was yellow carded for a late tackle. Dursley hung on with a man short but the pressure finally told when they were penalised at the breakdown and Old Boys converted the resultant penalty from the halfway line to squeeze a victory.