Ross still had a few out with injuries, but overcame Cirencester at Greytree on Saturday, winning 22-16 in a close league fixture, reports IAN PHILLIPS.

The game was re-arranged from last month due to the pitch being too hard. and whilst still firm it was in reasonable enough condition to play.

Cirencester started the better with play being contained in the Ross 22 but they couldn’t break through the hosts’ defence and had to settle for just three points from a penalty kick.

From the re-start, Ross woke up and from the base of a scrum No 8 Casey Morgan picked and drove for the line, just being held up.

However, his brother Louis gathered the ball from the ruck and drove over the white wash, with full-back Thai Hayward slotting the conversion for a 7-3 lead.

On the half-hour mark, Ross got the ball to their backs and slick hands put away winger George Duck.

He stretched for the tryline way out wide but was just short.

And from the resulting rucks, Casey again picked the ball up to be driven over by his fellow forwards.

Hayward narrowly missed the extras to leave Ross 12-3 to the good.

Casey was then given 10 minutes in the bin for kicking through at a ruck which enabled Cirencester to come back at Ross and score from a driving maul, making it 12-8 at the break.

The second half followed the same pattern as the first, with the Ross forwards dominating and they crept further ahead with a try from prop Josh Element, who emerged from a pile of Ross players with the ball, Hayward converting the extras to make it 19-8.

Cirencester were not done though, and made it 19-13 with an unconverted try and then kicked a penalty to come within reaching distance at 19-16.

Into the last quarter, Hayward kicked a penalty to give Ross a six-point cushion.

And the hosts dug deep to keep Cirencester at bay, almost grabbing a bonus point late on with a five-metre scrum that saw them edge to the line, only for the ref to penalise Ross for breaking a bind.

The MI Evans man of the match was centre Alexander Jenkins for a superb defensive display.

This week Ross travel to Gloucester Spartans, kick-off 3pm.