Cinderford suffered their second home defeat in a row against an Esher side who produced a strong second-half performance, to earn themselves five valuable points in their battle to avoid relegation from National League One.
The home side started the brightest with captain Harry Hone breaking off from a driving maul for his first try of the match, which Mike Wilcox converted. The visitors hit back with a break from winger Daniel Rowland before Pierre Thompson offloaded it to centre Luke Peters who went over. Esher’s second row Adam Bullett then shot over the line after some careless kicking from the home team, with Sam Morley converting.
Cinderford’s George Boulton soon pounced on a dominant scrum for his first score, Wilcox adding the extras. Then almost identical line from Boulton broke the defence and he breezed through untouched, with the Wilcox conversion making it 21-12. Thompson found a gap for the visitors and chipped it through for Morley to score and convert. After 33 minutes Cinderford suffered a blow when winger Mason Tonks was shown a red card, but Hone went over for his second try in similar fashion to the first, with Wilcox again converting to make it 28-19 at the interval.
Esher’s Bullett came flying out the blocks after the break with a charge down to grab his second try which Morley converted. Home replacement back Mike Austin then danced his way across the line and added the extras for his score.
Esher flanker Harvey Scott gathered a Morley offload and closed the gap to just two at 35-33. Rowland got over the line to put the visitors back into the lead, and then replacement forward Sam Bullock put the game to bed with his team’s seventh try, both of which were converted by Morley.
Cinderford; Morgan Adderley-Jones, Mason Tonks, Jamie Forrester, George Boulton, Will Hendy, Mike Wilcox, Jimmy Williams, George Porter, Nathan Taylor, Shaun Knight, Dan Hodge, Tyler Jerrum, Matt Lane, George Angell, Harry Hone (Capt.)
Repls; Tim Brockett, Harry Edwards, Jonny Holliday, Dec Fissenden, Mike Austin.