In doing so, they extended their unbeaten home record stretching back to last September and broke the 500 point barrier for the season with 7 tries in this bonus point victory.

It was a perfect start as Escher le Duc opened the scoring with a try after a mazy run in the first minute. Shortly afterwards, a scrum against the head saw Avon create another attack from which Josh Hiscott powered through for their second try.

With their experienced front row of Kane Book, Sam Book and Chris Mutlow leading the way in the scrums and Ben May winning decent line out ball, the Avon pack started to assert their dominance through a series of driving mauls. These allowed the backs front foot ball to launch several flowing moves out wide with full back Jake Coates bursting into the line to carve open Saints defence before delivering a perfect pass for Dan Griffin to touch down near the posts. Tom Boreham duly added the extras.

The Bristol visitors had demonstrated their own try-scoring potential in the corresponding match earlier in the season and once again showed their attacking capabilities to keep the ball alive through several phases before scoring a well-taken try in the corner. Only excellent Avon defence prevented any further scores as Saints pounded their line shortly before half time, leaving the score at 17 – 5 at the interval.

The next quarter remained scoreless as the match lost some fluency through a mixture of some dropped passes in the swirling wind and some stop-start play due to a series of penalties which disrupted the rhythm. With scrum half Kiddie Sheikh marshalling his troops, Avon simplified their approach to use their big forwards to breach the gain line before threatening through midfield.

This paid dividends as Boreham cut a great angle to power through the despairing tackles for the bonus point try. 10 minutes later, he repeated the trick after the Avon pack took their 5th heel against the head to allow him to surge across the try line again.

With Dan Cousineau making a welcome return off the bench and Ben Crane enjoying a rare comeback to 1st team rugby, Avon were now in the ascendency. A sumptuous move saw the ball transfer through several pairs of hands before centre Matt Thresher sold an exquisite dummy and then put winger Iain Parris away for his 18th try of the season. Boreham slotted the conversion to cap a man-of-the-match performance.

With injury time underway, there was still time for one last try as lock forward Hiscott charged up the middle of the pitch like a rampant rhino before Dan Griffin applied the French polish to score his second try in the corner.

Next week, Avon make the short trip across town to take on Stotherts at Adams Field.