Norton took the long journey to the Forest of Dean knowing their opposition had drawn with the league leaders the weekend before, so expected a hard battle.

The side shook the journey out of their legs and started the game with great purpose, putting the home team under pressure. Disappointingly, this field position and possession could not be turned into a try. The home side’s defence, although having to work hard, stayed firm, but gave away numerous penalties.

Unable to cross the line for the try, Norton resulted to taking a penalty kick to open the scoring and take a 3–0 lead.

After twenty minutes, having weathered the initial storm, Drybrook began to settle into their game plan and their experienced fly half put pace on the ball to keep the ball away from Norton’s pack. This allowed their dangerous outside backs to start scoring tries.

With the score at 26–3 at half-time, Drybrook had already gained the try bonus point.

Drybrook started the second half at a fast pace and soon added to the scoreboard with a well worked back peal from a close-range lineout move.

All through the game, Norton had parity in the forwards, but the Drybrook’s backs had the edge with the long pass of their fly half getting the ball out into the wide channels very quickly. Drybrook continued to score at regular intervals but, as in past weeks, Norton’s young players, Church, Schuster, Goddard, Rose and Anderson, stood up in the face of adversity. Rose had his best game in the front row and linked well with Goddard in the lineout. Halfway through the half, winger, Church, put in one huge defensive tackle to stop a certain try. Flanker, Clarke, repeated last week’s performance, as again, he worked hard in the loose and centre, Jefferies, caused the home side problems every time he got the ball.

Although beaten again, the team never gives up and is learning quickly from the experience of playing in this very strong league.