GLOUCESTERSHIRE WARRIORS 20

VALLEY COUGARS 62

THE Gloucestershire Warriors’ dismal run of form continued at Oxstalls as they slumped to a fifth consecutive loss again shipping a half century of points.

This result coupled with Oxford Cavaliers’ surprise win over Torfaen Tigers leaves the Warriors on the bottom of the table with three matches to play.

A 34-point haul from scrum half Danyl Davies, who crossed for four tries and added nine goals, was the scoring highlight with wing Ross Jones also chipping in with a hat-trick but the Cougars did not have to work too hard for many of their scores.

The Warriors were committed in patches and attacked strongly at the start and end of the game but there was little cohesion in the play at times and too often a chancy pass was thrown which usually went astray.

They did finish strongly with three tries in the final few minutes to at least make the scoreline semi-respectable but there was no hiding the difference in quality particularly in Davies whose pace and distribution caused problems right from the first minute when he sent prop Scott Giles through a big hole to score.

Davies then got his first score before Jones opened his account; all of this in the first quarter.

The Warriors had managed to mount some pressure on the visitors’ line and it finally paid off when Hector Silva forced his way over for a try.

It was a long threequarters of an hour before they crossed again and in that time the Cougars had made hay in the sunshine running in eight tries. Davies completed a hat-trick and Jones touched down for his second before the break with Davies setting the ball rolling at the start of the second period with his fourth try.

Adam Morgan crossed twice in quick succession before John Sanigar powered over and Jones completed his tally with 18 minutes still to play.

Amazingly, the Cougars failed to score again and the Warriors dominated possession and field position in the last quarter.

Dale Cook went over from dummy half before Andy Kay touched down Ash Lewis’ kick to the posts. With the final play of the game Jamie James powered over for a richly deserved try as he was one of the few Warriors along with Silva and occasionally Lewis to really trouble the visitors.

Lewis added two conversions but it was a footnote on another painful afternoon for the Warriors’ followers.