Avon 44 - Minehead Barbarians nil

Early pressure by the visitors initially kept Avon pinned in their own 22 but this was short lived as Avon took play downfield where Minehead infringed for fullback Sam Rowlands to kick a straight forward penalty to put his side into the lead. This was soon doubled as the reliable Rowlands added another straight forward penalty when Minehead were penalised for hands in the scrum.

Although the Barbarians were well organised, they lacked a cutting edge to unlock the Avon defence and, after further sustained Avon pressure, the powerful home pack drove Minehead over their own line for scrum half Ollie Flight to touch down the try, converted by Rowlands. After the ball went directly into touch from the restart, Avon launched a midfield move from the resulting scrum to put winger Ben Crane into space where he outstripped the defence with a fine individual run to cross in the corner for an unconverted try.

By this stage, the Avon forwards were showing complete dominance over their opponents and offered many opportunities for the talented Avon threes to show their paces. One such attack on the stroke of half time gave flyhalf Des Bowden half a gap which he exploited with a darting run for another try, again converted by Rowlands for a 25 nil interval lead.

Avon continued the second half in similar vein and soon increased their lead as a fine run by Crane found skipper Kai Harwood in support to sell an outrageous dummy for the bonus point try. With the result settled, Minehead’s day got even worse as they lost both their props to injury, forcing uncontested scrums for the final 15 minutes. Harwood then repeated his earlier score as he pirouetted out of a tackle to grab a brace of tries for the afternoon. Rowlands added the extras.

In the dying moments, after a good break from left wing Chris Eames, Bowden showed his extreme pace to scorch through the despairing defence for his second try of the match and his 17th of the season. Rowlands again converted to take his match tally to 14 points.

Having reached the midpoint of the league season undefeated, Avon are starting to look like potential title contenders and start the series of return matches next weekend at home to Weston Super Mare who held Avon close at the start of the season.