Cinderford just held on to record a vital victory over fellow strugglers Tynedale, despite being outscored by five tries to three.
The visitors opened the scoring after seven minutes when Sep Visser intercepted a loose pass and raced clear through for an unconverted try. More enterprising play from Tynedale created another try from Chris Harris, before Mark Davies replied with a penalty for Cinderford to make it 10-3 to the visitors at the interval.
A three try scoring burst by the home side in the opening ten minutes of the second-half appeared to have swung the momentum of the match towards them, with Roger Birkin, Joe Garner and Nev Codlin all touching down, with Davies adding two conversions to make it 22-10. However Tynedale hit back with a try double from Visser, to complete his ‘hat trick’, and a conversion from Gavin Beasley to level the scores after 67 minutes play.
Davies was on target with two penalties to ease Cinderford back ahead, but there was still time for a dramatic conclusion to the match when Matt Charters crossed for a try for the visitors. Beasley once again missed the conversion, and he failed to land a penalty with the last kick of the game to hand victory to the home side.
Star man – Roger Birkin
Cinderford RFC — Mike Wilcox (Stef Hawley h/t), Nev Codlin, Alex Pickersgill, Jack Adams, Sam Baker, Mark Davies, Clive Stuart-Smith (Danny Pointon 52), Chris Bundy (Lee Fortey 63), Finlay Sinclair (Tom Bozzard 57), Elliot Booley, Harry Casson (Lance Randall 74), Ed King, Roger Birkin, Joe Garner, George Evans (c)