Early pressure saw Avon take the lead with a penalty from Jonny Batchelor. Then a try blitz followed in the next 15 minutes as the pack supplied a feast of possession. Ben May started things off with a try following a quickly taken tap penalty from Ollie Flight before winger Iain Parris bamboozled the defence with a scintillating run to touch down near the posts. With the forwards earning the hard yards with a series of drives, Xander Davis was next on the scoresheet as he powered over the tryline.

Two Batchelor conversions opened up a 22 point lead inside the first quarter but Avon then struggled to maintain the same intensity and, as their concentration dipped, Quins started to make a comeback and were rewarded with a converted try shortly before half time.

Avon made two tactical substitutions from their strong bench at half time with Kiddie Sheikh and Ian Burntsnail entering the fray. An unplanned change soon followed as powerful centre Zak Harwood was forced to leave the field with a worrying knee injury but Avon responded with a tremendous try in the corner from winger Tai Harwood who celebrated his debut with the Man-of-the-Match award afterwards.

With Dan Cousineau setting a target up front, fluent midfield handling saw another dangerous counterattack which resulted in Escher Le Duq escaping the despairing defence to dot down Avon’s 5th try. To their credit, Quins came back strongly again with another converted try to reduce the deficit. But Avon had the last word as another searing run from Batchelor linked well with Tom Boreham before supporting prop Chris Mutlow added their final try. Uncannily, for the third time during the afternoon, the attempted conversion bounced back off the posts.

Afterwards Head Coach Kai Harwood said “There were definite improvements from last week but we still only played in patches. There’s still a lot more to come but I’m much happier with the effort today. I can honestly say that we showed the best back three performance in attack and defence that I’ve seen in an Avon team for 15 years.”

Next Saturday Avon travel to take on Crewkerne in their first away match this season.