Gloucester Premier

Cirencester 44 Frampton Cotterell 5

CIRENCESTER'S challenge was to gain five points and the reward after their 44-5 victory over Frampton Cotterell was to move into second place in the league.

The poor conditions were not about to stop the home side from moving the ball around.

It took just six minutes for Jack Lister to open the scoring with a penalty for offside.

The restart was gathered by James Renowden who offloaded to Alex Hammond before strong winger Mike Wrona took over. Breaking through a number of tackles he found Joe Hammond who cut inside to run over unopposed.

Things didn’t improve for the away side at the next restart as Renowden gathered again this time the ball was released through the backs and James Isaacs powered over from distance. The conversion made it 15-0.

With 25 minutes left in the first half Lister took advantage of some more offside indiscipline to kick a penalty.

After five minutes of good possession and strong carries from the away side, Cirencester turned the ball over and a clearance kick to touch ended up as a good attacking platform for the home side.

Scott Brandreth found his man at the line-out and an accurately-executed backs move allowed Wrona to gallop around the oncoming defence.

Frampton then enjoyed a good spell of possession and after some big carries and good tactical kicking they managed to work their way into the home side’s 22 for the first time in the game.

A Cirencester infringement at the line-out gave Frampton a five-metre attacking line-out and after a good catch and drive the forwards powered over to leave the interval score 25-5.

The first ten minutes of the second half was very tight with the away side enjoying the majority of possession but opportunities went begging through poor decision making.

From a 22-metre defensive line-out Renowden offloaded to Lister who found Wrona hunting from the blind wing. The Cirencester flier gathered pace as he left a chasing line of defenders behind him and the converted try took the score to 32-5.

Sam Griffiths then put in a huge hit in midfield and when his opponent spilt the ball Isaacs put his boot through it and gave chase only for the full back to kick it dead with the try line begging.

The next 20 minutes saw the game played between the two 22-metre lines. Another move from an attacking line-out saw Wrona ghost through the middle again for another try.

With five minutes remaining and Cirencester still attacking, a good driving line-out from the home side resulted in Renowden’s first senior try which took the final score to 44-5.

A good team performance pleased the coaching team and supporters.

Wrona had a fantastic game as did Scott Brandreth but Cirencester's man of the match for putting the home side in the right areas in horrid conditions was full back Joe Hammond.

Cirencester's second XV were also at home to Gloucester Old Boys and comfortably won 31-3 while the third XV had a tight match at Minchinhampton Rams, narrowly losing 15-20.

This weekend the firsts travel to director of rugby Andy Deacon’s junior playing club Longlevens.

On the opposition side will be his son Oliver at prop as well as nephew and back rower Martin Deacon all under the watchful gaze of his older brother Mark Deacon, who is Longlevens' vice president. A family affair indeed!