Cirencester U16s............................... 13

Minchinhampton U 16s........................ 22

MINCHINHAMPTON edged out Cirencester in a hard fought friendly.

Early exchanges were pretty even, but it was against the run of play that Cirencester opened the scoring with a penalty.

Strong forward drives, notably led by Phil Bennett, allowed Minch to respond positively with makeshift No.8 Liam Nash, who was superb throughout, crashing over from close range.

The difficult conversion was missed, but Minch briefly held a 5 - 3 lead before excellent line out play was undone by some indecision in the backs allowing the powerful Cirencester centre to steal possession and score an unconverted try.

Minch, overcoming their disappointment, rallied well and, through increasing dominance in both scrum and lineout, marched down the field to allow Nash to cross the line again for a try, which was converted by captain Aiden Riley.

Minch maintained their forward dominance in the tight, however, and one of several strikes against the head by hooker Connor Huntly allowed Nash to power over from close range to seal a hat-trick of tries.

Cirencester continued to cause problems, however, and some slick passing saw them create enough space for the powerful centre, Elliott, to claw back the advantage to 17-13.

The final score was a thing of beauty with the whole backline involved in releasing James Clements to score.