South West Division 1
Cinderford 15
Old Patesians 10
CINDERFORD coach Dennis Hargreaves is warning his team not to take the prospect of promotion for granted as they approach the half-way stage of the season proudly sitting on top of South West Division One.
The mouth-watering pros-pect of National League rugby at Dockham Road is round the corner, but Hargreaves is only too well aware of the possible pitfalls between now and the end of the season.
He has a simple solution to make sure they go up: "We must win every one of our games," he says.
Both Cinderford and Old Pats were unbeaten before Saturday's Dockham Road clash and for a while it seemed as they Cinderford would be the losers as they conceded a 10 points advantage.
"We couldn't get the ball and we were troubled by Pats' driving forward play. But we did defend well," said Hargreaves.
The roles were reversed in the second-half and a try by new number eight Steve King and a penalty by Matt Sherratt set up a thrilling finish. It was a close run thing but Cinderford turned their pressure into points and snatched the coveted victory with a try by Nick Cuthbert, converted by Sherratt.
Pats have a game in hand on Cinderford and will have home advantage when the teams meet again. Barnstaple are also dangerous opponents lurking in third position but always hard to beat on their own ground.
"People are saying we are already up. But we must not take anything for granted.
"We certainly don't want to play again like we did in the first-half on Saturday and Pats must realise they missed a couple of chances to sew the game up.
"But it was a pleasing performance once we started to win the ball and move it wide. Hopefully they have not seen the best of us yet," said Hargreaves.
Hargreaves picked out the back-row trio, Steve King, Paul Hudson and Kerry Bourne, for special praise and also commended outside-half Matt Sherratt and centre Duncan Edwards for the intensity of their tackling when Cinderford withstood the first-half onslaught.