Ross Rugby Club Firsts battled hard and came away from Dursley with a deserved draw in difficult, wet and windy conditions on Saturday. Their unbeaten league run now stretches back to the first week of November. Dursley won the toss and decided to play with the conditions. The Dursley pitch is elevated, which meant it survived the previous week's deluge. However, for most of the match it rained and this combined with a fierce wind to make the encounter a 'game of two halves'. With the conditions in their favour, the first half was played out in Ross territory and both forwards and backs had to work tirelessly in defence to keep a lively Dursley side out. Ross defended not only bravely, but cleverly. Dursley looked to move the ball quickly from the breakdown, but Ross countered this by committing only the minimum players to the rucks, organizing themselves quickly in defence. snuffing out Dursley's attacks. When the half time whistle went Dursley only had one successful penalty for all their territorial advantage. At the half time break Ross knew that if they could achieve the same amount of territory Dursley had achieved in the first half, the game was theirs for the taking. After a shaky start to the second half, Ross began to assert control. They were making a mess of the Dursley scrum, with the front row of Tara Barnett,Wayne Williams and Matt Redman turning over ball on numerous occasions. With this possession the Ross pack were able to dominate, Ashley Nelms, TC Leech and captain, Tim Hanks, bashing holes in the Dursley defence. However, with conditions continuing to deteriorate, Ross were not able to develop enough fazes of play to break down a stubborn Dursley defence. Chris Gage did convert a penalty after 60 minutes to bring Ross level 3 - 3. Both forwards and backs did all they could during the last 10 minutes to break Dursley down, but they held firm. With the last kick of the game, Ross did have an opportunity to snatch a victory, but Chris Gage's 50 metre penalty attempt went wide to the right and the referee blew, bringing an absorbing contest to a close. The Ross man of the match was Tim Hank. Ross play Brockworth next sat at the Sports Centre with a 2.30pm kick off.
