Cinderford secured a bonus point win over Leeds Tykes, but it was a tough encounter, and it took some resolute defence from the visitors particularly in the second half to ensure their victory.
Leeds, looking to kickstart their campaign, produced something special straight from the kick-off as the ball went through numerous pairs of hands before reaching winger Seremaia Bai Turagebeci, who got on the outside and ran in unopposed for a try under the posts to give Charlie Venables the simplest of conversions. Cinderford suffered a blow in the build up to the try with outside-half Reece Boughton having to leave the field with a nasty- looking knee injury.
That score sparked the visitors into life, and five minutes later Mike Austin scored and converted his own try to level proceedings. The away side increased their advantage when they counter-attacked from inside their own half with Mike Wilcox seizing on a loose ball before brilliantly offloading to James Forrester to score under the posts. Austin added the extras. Cinderford looked to taking control when hooker Nathan Taylor scored his first try just after the half hour as Cinderford’s driving maul gave them supremacy and only firm Tykes defence stopped the margin getting any wider before the interval.
The second half was a much tighter affair, with the play mostly in the middle third, Leeds enjoying most of the possession but were all too often let down by handling errors. Kieran Davies capped off an exciting passage of play to give Leeds a sniff on 48 minutes, when Venables ran a superb kick return and got an arm free to offload for the Welshman to sprint down the blindside and score.
Taylor bagged himself a brace to give Cinderford the bonus point on 57 minutes and although Leeds were on top for much of the closing stages they were unable to turn their territory into points.
Cinderford; Mike Wilcox, Will Baldwin, James Forrester, George Boulton, Will Hendy, Reece Boughton, Mike Austin, George Porter, Nathan Taylor, Shaun Knight, Tyler Jerrum, Jack Shields, Matt Lane, Aaron Ryan, George Angell.
Replacements; Tim Brockett, Sam Baker, Joe Mullis, Jonny Holliday, Clive Stuart-Smith.