Gloucester One League

Widdon Old Boys 22 Dursley 31

DURSLEY travelled to Widden with hopes of keeping their top of the table chase alive.

The ground was remarkably firm despite heavy rain earlier in the week allowing Dursley to play to their own game plan.

Widden started with early pressure in the Dursley red zone but the dominant front five of Josh Case, Joe Cowley, Damien Cresswell, Jack Western and Simon Camm drove the Widden maul backwards.

As Widden spread the ball out along their back line it was intercepted on the Dursley 22 by winger Olli Halford to sprint unchallenged and score under the posts with fly half Grant Boucher adding the extras with only three minutes played 0-7.

Widden continued to challenge but the Dursley defence looked solid with well placed clearance kicks from full back Liam Smith and Boucher. Winger Chris Perrett had the chance to stretch his legs with some strong running but his looping run around the Widden line was stopped short. Dursley missed the opportunity to add to the score 18 minutes in when a penalty kick from Boucher was off target.

With the Dursley lineout working well they were able to vary their jumpers with Western, Jack Rowe and Jack Robson showing safe hands.

A great line by Western and hard yards by number eight Tim Wilcox and centre Sam Casteledine kept Dursley on the front foot. Widden rallied into the Dursley five metre but were unable to compete at the scrum with Dursley repeatedly pushing them off the ball.

With 28 minutes played Widden made good use of their quick back line to score in the corner and adding the extras from the difficult touchline conversion to level the score 7-7 and minutes later took the lead from a penalty 10-7.

With the half drawing to a close good positioning by centre Duncan Goodison allowed him to intercept a looping Widden pass on the half way line to romp in under the posts with Boucher adding the extras to retake the lead 10-14.

Despite strong tackling by scrum half Jo McGouch and Robson Widden added a repeat of their earlier score but they were unable to add the conversion giving them the narrowest of leads at half time 15-14.

The second half started with Ryan Malpass replacing Smith and play by both sides was scrappy.

Minutes in there was a long delay for an injury to a Widden player.

As play was restarted Widden kicked over the top and Dursley failed to deal with the difficult bounce allowing Widden to pick up and score under the posts and add the conversion to extend their lead 22-14.

Dursley made a couple of replacements with Andy Plumridge joining for Case and Smith rejoining and Malpass moving to fly half for the injured Boucher. Dursley continued to dominate at the scrum and tempers got a little heated resulting in a yellow card for Widden's number eight.

Dursley took this opportunity to capitalise and were rewarded with a pick up from the base of the scrum by Wilcox to score with Halford adding the extras and close the gap to 22-21.

Midway through the half strong running and a good offload by Wilcox to Robson and pass to Smith for Dursley’s bonus point unconverted try and retake the lead 22-26.

Josh Bailey joined to replace Cowely. On the 25 minute mark Widden missed a penalty and Dursley pulled out all of the stops to challenge the Widden defence.

In the dying minutes a lovely clearance kick by Malpass to touch on the Widden five metre and patience going through the phases by the Dursley pack was rewarded with an unconverted try from Camm supported by Plumridge from the final play of the game bringing the final score to 22-31.