IT was a wet and blustery day as Dursley travelled to Ashley Down in North Bristol for the first competitive game of the season.

Pre-season had gone well for Dursley and it was time to put all the summer training to good effect in the first round of the Gloucester Cup, the winners of which get entered in the National Cup with a potential trip to Twickenham for the finalists.

The game started well when eventual man of the match Tim Wilcox took the ball on the Dursley 22 and made a strong run deep into the Ashley Down half, offloading to Simon Camm who took it further.

Ashley Down knocked on at the resultant ruck giving Dursley an attacking scrummage on the home sides 5m line.

The front five of Josh Case, Joe Cowley, Damien Crosswell, Silas Winterbottom and Jack Western were dominant at the scrum but the ball spilled and Dursley were awarded a penalty. Pack leader Western elected to re-scrum given the previous dominance.

The pack rewarded him for that decision with an excellent re-scrum with Camm picking up from the base to score. Fly Half Grant Boucher missed the conversion but just four minutes into the game, Dursley were 5-0 up.

Newly promoted Ashley Down weren’t going to make it easy for Dursley and their big runners started to pick and drive from the re-start.

They kicked a penalty to make it 5-3.

That was clearly enough for the Dursley side as they then ran in a number of tries, the first being a repeat of the first try with Camm running in from close range from a scrum followed by a superb team effort as a break by Western down the right flank was followed by penetrating runs by Jake Martin and Cowley before scrum half Sam Pinker let the backs loose.

Sam Castledine released Liam Smith to score in the corner. Both conversions were missed to leave Dursley 15-3 ahead.

A similar pattern followed for the rest of the half. Camm scored from a drive and then the backs were released with Bradley Winchle scoring out wide.

Camm got a third and a fourth as he managed to juggle a ball over the head of the defending winger to score out wide.

All the tries were as a result of the marauding Dursley pack, well led by Western and the strong ball carrying of Wilcox, Martin and Camm. When the Ashley Down side did get a sniff of the ball, the Dursley side defended as well as they attacked.

The Ashley Down side never gave up though and close on half time they penetrated deep into the Dursley half. Winchle managed to intercept a try scoring pass to then run the length of the field to end the half with Dursley leading 39-3.

A few changes were made at half time with first team debutants Callum Rivers-Cole and Nathan Perrett and it was Perrett coming off his wing to take a delightful pass from Boucher, chip the entire Ashley Down defence for Winchle to collect the ball and pass to Smith to score his second of the game.

Ashley Down scored two late converted tries as Dursley eased off.