Clevedon 14 Avonmouth OB 27: Avonmouth kept the pressure on Newton Abbot for a play-off place in South West Two West with a hard-fought win at local rivals Clevedon.

The victory, their third of the season over the Seasiders, came at a price with both locks – Danny Williams and Luke Mathews – sustaining injuries that saw them having to be helped off the field, causing major disruption to the visitors game plan.

That said, Clevedon belied their bottom-of-the-table status and played with a great deal of spirit and commitment but lacked the vital cutting edge in the backs.

Avonmouth opened the scoring inside two minutes through flanker Elliott Goodman, who re-gathered a charged down kick to score out wide. Two minutes later, Clevedon repaid the compliment with flanker Harvey Russell charging down fly-half Matt Lawrence's attempted clearance to touch down under the posts. Steve Johnson converted.

Twelve minutes later, good build-up work by the Avonmouth pack saw Goodman bag his second score of the afternoon. The livewire flanker broke several tackles on his way to the try line to make it 10-7.

Clevedon didn't help themselves by giving away a string of penalties which enabled Avonmouth to set up camp in their half. In the 29th minute the pressure told when replacement lock Phil Dickenson crashed over. Lawrence converted to make it 17-7 at the interval.

A 44th-minute Lawrence penalty extended the visitors' lead before Avonmouth were disrupted by a series of injuries that forced them to reshuffle their pack.

'Mouth's problems were compounded in the 75th minute, when they had skipper Grant Britton sin-binned for punching. Clevedon, playing against 14 men, picked up the pace and was rewarded a minute later, when fly-half Tom O'Rourke dived over to score. Johnson converted to make it 20-14.

In the dying moments, the Somerset club tried to run out of their own 22 but the attack broke down, gifting Sam Thompson a try. The centre's effort was converted by Lawrence to give Avonmouth the win.