In a cold misty afternoon drizzle, the first half hour failed to ignite the imagination. It was a very stop-start affair, littered with mistakes, handling errors, wrong options and too many penalties as the defences held sway. Eventually, Avon’s forward power was rewarded as a massive scrum surge near the posts saw Ben Hurd touch down the pushover try. Rob Fitch converted.

After withstanding an Oldfield attack deep inside the visitors 22, Fitch made the home side suffer from conceding two separate penalties with two massive touch finders taking play to the other end of the field. Clean line out possession from Rhys van den Handel was smoothly transferred to the back of the rolling maul where Hurd made no mistake with his second try.

With the last play of the half, the rangy Oldfield centre cut a good line from halfway to score a fine individual try under the posts leaving the score 12 – 7 at the break.

Welcoming back Josh Hiscott and Adam Hinchcliffe-Walz to the second row, Avon’s pack again exploited their superiority as a monstrous line out drive powered over the try line for Hurd to complete his hat-trick by scoring his 11th try of the season.

Avon suffered a double blow midway through the second half with scrum half Kiddie Sheikh being carried off before his replacement Ollie Flight suffered a similar fate 10 minutes later. Iain Parris showed his versatility with a cameo performance at scrum half on his 140th 1st team appearance and powerful runs from Zak Harwood were only thwarted by good Oldfield tackling.

Eventually there was only one outcome when Avon launched another powerful drive towards the line, forcing Oldfield to illegally collapse the maul, leaving the referee no alternative but to award a penalty try and yellow card to the offender.

With the try bonus secured and more worrying injuries being collected as the match entered its last stages, Avon relaxed in defence allowing Oldfield to add a late consolation try with a chip and chase to touch down near the posts.