Avon win the battle of the unbeaten. Wells 14 Avon 18

Avon came to wells having won the  bath combination team of the month award for September due their unbeaten start to the season to face a team who were also unbeaten and top of the table with the best points for and against record in the league.

In a game which was always going to be close it was wells who struck first after ten minutes when they took advantage of  Avon being down to fourteen as a player received treatment and worked an outside break through the outstanding centre Alex knight to score the first try of the game , the conversion was missed. Avon found themselves having to re-shuffle their back line at the this point when they lost young winger Zak Harwood to an accidental clash of heads as he tried to stop knight from scoring. After twenty minutes Wells went further ahead  with a penalty from fly half Aaron cook.  Finding themselves 8 nil down Avon gradually started to take control  as their game plan started to play dividends  when they relentlessly attacked the Wells lineout which allowed Dilloway and Book to steal a large percentage of the hosts ball. This linked to a series of driving mauls by the Avon pack designed to suck in the the wells forwards which saw them wrestle back control of the game.

After 29 minutes following another forward drive Sam Rowlands spotted a gap on the blind side to sneak over for a try In the corner, the conversion was missed from wide out. The Avon pressure told again when they brought the scores level after 38 minutes with a straight forward Rowlands penalty in front of the posts and with Avon fly half Bowden stretching the wells defence with his long range kicking Avon once again created a scoring position and when wells  infringed once again Rowlands made no mistake with a penalty wide out in the left hand touchline to give Avon an 8-11 lead at half time.

With the second half following a similar pattern to the first, Avon with their edge at the set piece and Wells looking wherever possible to keep the ball alive the game looked like it was always going to go down to the wire between these two closely matched sides.   Wells got the initiative back when they kicked a further two penalties at 46 and 67 minutes to give them a 14-11 lead going into the closing stages of this enthralling game. Having gone behind for the second time in the game Avon took the fight back to Wells and having felt extremely aggrieved to have what looked like an excellent score disallowed when winger Ben crane seemed to have won the foot race to a chip ahead they regrouped to steal yet another wells line out ten metres from the home teams line, and with the referee playing advantage for a Wells defender collapsing a maul   Bowden struck a perfect cross field kick and this time there could be no doubt as Crane dived through the air to catch and touch down the ball in one movement. The try was converted by Rowlands to give Avon a 14-18 lead with ten minutes to go. Wells threw everything they could at Avon but their well organised defence held firm to allow them to keep their unbeaten league run which goes back to February intact.  

Avon who's unbeaten start to the season is all the more remarkable due to them having played 6 of the 7 games away from home know that they will have another stiff test next week against local rivals Stotherts.