Dursley RFC 17

St Brendans 21

Dursley kicked-off the 2019/20 season with a narrow defeat to newly promoted St Brendans on a hard ground under a hot September sun, writes Chris Perrett.

Dursley took the lead inside 60 seconds following the welcome return of Boucher's boot after the award of a penalty.

The visitors found themselves a man down after 8 minutes when a yellow card was shown for a high tackle on Ford as he raced down the touchline. The home side began to exert pressure particularly in the scrum where the front eight began where they left off the previous season.

Dursley failed to take advantage of the one man advantage, and were given an early warning of the visitors ability to turn defence into attack when some sloppy play allowed Brendans to break from their 22, with only some powerful tracking back and defence from Baily and Cole preventing a try.

Dursley then showed what they could do when Cole made his own 40 metre break just being tackled by the last defender.

Dursley found themselves behind when after a lineout Brendans moved the ball across their backline to score, the conversation made it 3-7.

From the restart the home side were awarded a penalty for holding on as Dursley swarmed over. Boutcher cut the score to 6-7.

Three minutes before half time Dursley once again found themselves short at the breakdown allowing the visiting number eight to step over pick up the ball and race away to score, the conversation made it 6-14.

Dursley pressed straight from the restart finding themselves feeding a scrum on the five-metre line. The eight to a man then gave all they could as no fewer than 4 penalties were awarded to extend the half to almost 50 minutes, the effort was rewarded when Camm made it 11-14, Boucher missing the two points.

The second half began with the home side playing up the slope and in attack for the first ten minutes and just when it looked easier to score Dursley dropped the ball on the half way line allowing the winger to pick up and race away to score under the posts the added conversation took it to 11-21. Dursley continued to attack and were awarded another penalty in front of the posts for Boucher to reduce deficient to 14-21.

With 10 minutes remaining Dursley lost Stu to a nasty knee injury.

This loss galvanised the team as they pushed forward looking for more points which one more penalty made it 17-21. Dursley pummeled the visitors try line for the final five minutes but just came up short.