PAINSWICK produced an excellent fightback from 15-0 at the interval to earn a thrilling draw with the last kick of the game against local rivals Dursley at a soggy Broadham Fields.

The homeside started brightly but came up against a well-drilled defence.

As the half wore on Dursley started to get a foothold in the game and soon took the lead with a well struck penalty.

They increased their lead with an unconverted try. Painswick responded when skipper Aussie Smith made an excellent break, but with two men outside him decided to go alone and was tackled just short of the tryline. From the resulting scrum Dursley ran the ball and their excellent full-back ran the length of the field to score under the posts, conversion successfully giving them a 15-0 lead. Right on the half-time whistle the Painswick forwards drove over the line and scored what they thought was a try but the referee disallowed it, even though the Dursley linesman said it was a try.

With Painswick on top it was important they scored first in the second half and after only five minutes another break from Smith led to winger Tom Fox going over in the corner, Ali Bressington landed the conversion from the touchline. With their tails up Painswick piled on the pressure but they were rocked when once again Dursley’s full-back scored a try from a long way out to put them 20-7 up with twenty minutes to play.

Painswick responded and eventually after an excellent run from centre Jake Saunders second row Russell Thornton went over for Painswick’s second try, Bressington missed the conversion.

Painswick continued to put Dursley under pressure and they were rewarded when winger Will Hewer went over in the corner after a flowing backs move, once again Bressington missed the conversion to leave Painswick trailing by three points with only minutes remaining.

More Painswick pressure resulted in a penalty just in from the touchline, Bressington narrowly missed. The referee called last play from the dropout so Painswick kept the ball alive and after at least seven phases Dursley infringed and gave Painswick another penalty, this time Bressington made no mistake and landed the penalty straight through the middle of the posts to earn a draw.