Gloucester One League

Ashley Down Old Boys 3 Dursley 64

DURSLEY kept the pressure on Spartans at the top of Gloucester One division with a thumping away victory at Ashley Down Old Boys on Saturday.

Dursley were spectacular and deserved their bonus point victory.

With the weather in their favour being dry underfoot and suiting their style of expansive play, Dursley had their first chance to put points on the board from a penalty which fly half Grant Boucher skimmed just wide.

The 22 drop out kick was safely collected by winger Brad Winchle who made his trademark jinking run through the ADOB defence to pass to number eight Tim Wilcox for a score near the posts with Boucher converted.

Ashley Down rallied and earned a long range penalty which was comfortably slotted to close the gap to four points.

But that was to be their only points of the game as Dursley found their gear.

From the restart, winger Chris Perrett made sure of possession and Wilcox made a strong break to score under the posts. With both the line-out and scrum dominating, Dursley were always on the front foot and were unlucky when Perrett made a good break with prop Ty Chappell making hard yards in support but the final pass was judged forward. Midway through the half, captain and back row Jack Robson made a lovely dummy to break the line and offload to Chappell for Dursley’s third try.

Boucher converted again and was showing he was on fire with the boot.

On thirty minutes, Dursley won the an opposition line-out on and quick thinking scrum-half Sam Pinker passed to Boucher who spun the ball through the back line of centres Sam Castledine and Duncan Goodison, supported by front row Joe Cowley and Damien Crosswell, to send Perrett away for a 75 metre to score under the posts for the bonus point fourth try. With half-time looming, Boucher kicked a penalty for a huge 31-3 advantage to Dursley.

Dursley starting strongly again with text book tackling by back row Josh Bailey and Robson along with good work on the fringes by second row Simon Camm. Dominance at the scrum gave Dursley possession at an Ashley Down scrum for Wilcox to pick up and race from inside his own half to score his hat-trick try. Boucher's conversion made it 38-3.

Dursley only had to wait another five minutes for Perrett to run up the touchline from inside this own half to score in the corner, with Boucher kicking a superb conversion. Second row Jack Western had a strong chase as Ashley Down made a break for the line.

Midway through the second-half, good hands by the back line put Robson through to score an unconverted try that took Dursley to fifty points.

Dursley’s next score saw Winchle go over in the corner and Boucher slotted the difficult touchline conversion 3-57. Winchle managed to sneak in another try. Boucher converted to return a 19-point haul for himself, and which saw Dursley return their biggest win of the season so far.

Dursley are at home to Bream in the league on Saturday.