FOUR Dursley RFC products helped Gloucestershire Under-20s retain the National Championship at Twickenham, with a 29-15 win over Yorkshire.

Stef Hawley, now with Cinderford, and Gloucester Academy and Cinderford’s Ollie Winterbottom started the game, along with lock Jack Robson, while Scarlets’ Ben Morgan came off the bench, and scored a try.

Yorkshire opened the scoring after five minutes with a 25-metre penalty by fly-half Tom Davidson when Gloucestershire infringed at a scrum and that early success gave the White Rose side the impetus to dominate the initial exchanges.

Gloucestershire scored the opening try after 25 minutes. The ball was worked to the left flank with some good support play and when the transfer to the opposite wing was smoothly executed, wingman Reuben Haile had just enough space to stretch over for a well-worked try.

Full-back Hawley converted a penalty from wide on the 22 to extend his side’s lead to 8-3 at half-time. Yorkshire almost got on level terms after some strong forward play marked the resumption, but they were denied when the referee penalised them for a double movement.

Having survived that scare, Gloucestershire were soon back on the offensive and two tries in as many minutes left Yorkshire with a mountain to climb. After 59 minutes their defensive wall was finally breached from close range by replacement No 8 Morgan and then a kick ahead ended in replacement Marcus Brown racing onto a favourable bounce to slice through the Yorkshire defence. Hawley converted both scores to give his side a 22-3 cushion, but Yorkshire responded when a charged down clearance brought a try for centre Jamie Broadley that Davidson converted.

Gloucestershire were in no mood to relax and centre Paul Jarvis sliced through tired Yorkshire tackling from 40 yards for a try converted by Hawley, a last-minute try for Yorkshire by centre Tyle Stimpson being a slender consolation.

Gloucestershire U20s: S Hawley (Cinderford); R Haile (Cinderford), P Jarvis (Hartpury Coll), S Morris (Stourbridge), O Winterbottom (Cinderford); K Cook (Loughborough Students), J Williams (Lydney); G Porter (Lydney) capt, T Stagg (Bath Rugby), K Newport (Bath Rugby), H Casson (Cleve), J Robson (Cheltenham North), W Foden (Stourbridge), J Preece (Birmingham & Solihull), H Tovey (Clifton). Replacements: W Davis (Cleve), W Cooper (Chaddesley Corbett), B Morgan (Scarlets), M Brown (Cinderford), S Arnott (Cinderford), J Hall (Cleve), C Surman (Cheltenham).