Avon beat Frome 18 - 6 to reach Vase Final on Rec

Having disposed of Southern Counties opponents Devizes in the quarter finals, Avon were once again faced with an away match against higher league opposition in Frome who seemed to pose an early threat with their large pack. Yet Avon soon knuckled down to the task and, after two powerful scrums inside the frome 22, scrumhalf Ollie Flight broke up the blindside before feeding lock forward Jake Dixon inside to crash over for the opening try 10 minutes into the match.

This showed a sign of things to come as Avon’s pack started to dominate the set pieces, whilst frome competed more strongly in the loose forward exchanges. Having seen a penalty attempt rebound from the posts and with a Frome player sin-binned for a spear tackle, Avon doubled their lead with their second try as a clean lineout catch and drive sucked in the home defence before Chris Eames scooted into the corner for another unconverted try.

frome struck back with a penalty after a strong attack when Avon were penalised for collapsing a driving maul to reduce the deficit to 10 points to 3 at half time and they improved this still further with another penalty after the break.

With their regular half backs and leading points scorers away for Easter, Avon then brought Shaun Wynes off the bench to make a welcome reappearance at flyhalf in the first team after two knee reconstructions and he soon made his mark with a successful penalty after a flowing Avon attack was illegally halted. With Wynes now calmly controlling the game and with the Avon pack taking 6 strikes against the head and dominating the lineouts, frome were starved of possession.

They briefly threatened with an interception but were denied by an excellent cover tackle from Ben Crane and couldn’t escape the midfield shackles of Damien Sawyer and Stuart Thompson. As Avon increased the forward pressure, only a couple of knock-ons prevented further scores before they put the result out of sight when a soaring leap by Jake Dixon at the front of a lineout secured clean ball for replacement flanker Dexter Robinson to burrow over the line for their final try.

Avon now face the winners of Stotherts and Combe Down in the final to be held at the Rec on Wednesday 25th April.