Gloucester Premier Division

Chipping Sodbury 62 Longlevens 24

CHIPPING Sodbury had assembled a stellar line-up of former players on the touchline to watch their first home Gloucester Premier game but the opening 10 minutes did nothing to showcase Sodbury’s skills as they were blitzed by Longlevens.
The opposition raced to a 14-0 lead but Longlevens did not know that a storm was about to break out.
Following a quiet word, Sodbury started to fight back.
A long 22 drop-out from the visitors was fielded by long man Joe Horton, who simply blasted 40m up field, swatting away the tackles. 
His pass found Pete Butcher in space on the left and he in turn set Dave Guest off in pursuit of a try. When he was dragged down short he had wing Kurt Moreton on hand to finish off and score the first of his hat-trick. 
Sodbury drew level from the kick-off and after some hard running and ferocious rucking, the ball popped up to Jake Lewis. He left the defence for dead and cruised in from 50m. 
Sodbury once again set off deep into Longlevens’ territory. All it took was three fast rucks before there was enough space to set Moreton free to gallop in for his second score. 
The home side had worked hard in the week to cut down on penalties and this meant there was little relief for the visitors. 
From a 10m scrum on their own line, Longlevens won their ball but were unable to clear it away. Sodbury pounced on the ruck and turned the ball over, for scrum-half Tom Cawston to snipe round the ruck and dive in for a try. 
The last try of the half was scored with a trademark Sodbury lineout drive. Matt Cooke soared high to claim the ball, which was expertly worked to the back of the maul where Butcher snatched it before the rest of the pack propelled him over the line.
The second-half was only two minutes old when the Sodbury number eight blasted Longlevens off their own ball at a scrum on halfway. 
Player picked up and under the attention of two defenders, he managed to get his hands free and supply Moreton with the pass for his hat-trick try from 40m. 
Sodbury conceded their last points when Longlevens put together a lineout drive for a bonus-point fourth try, bringing the score to 36–24 with over 30 minutes left. 
Just minutes later, Player was involved again when his pick-up, charge at a scrum saw him pass to wing Max Gallagher set up a ruck from which Cooke scored. 
A Sodbury scrum just inside Longlevens’ half produced a stunning first phase try for Horton. No-one put a hand on the centre after he simply dropped his shoulder and stepped around the defence to score with a spectacular dive between the posts. 
The final two tries went to prolific fly-half Dan Bradley. His first came from line-out ball driven up the centre of the pitch. Bradley sold a dummy to stride over the line. 
Five minutes later, Sodbury’s defensive work bore more fruit. Longlevens were made to knock on and the ball was pounced upon by Bradley, who cut through all their flailing attempts to stop him on his way in for his brace.  Bradley also enjoyed a good day with the boot, kicking six out of 10 conversions.