Former Bristol favourite Craig Short has rediscovered his passion for rugby since becoming head coach of Cleve.

The flanker had two complete years out of the game after retiring at the end of the 2006/07 Premiership season to concentrate on setting up his own building company.

But he is now relishing his role at Cleve, who got the new campaign off to an excellent start with a 10-0 win away to Redingensians in National Three South-West.

He said: "I think I needed that time out to gather my thoughts, particularly when day in day out rugby is your life, and focus on the business.

"It's great to be involved again – you would have thought it was a cup final on Saturday the way I was pacing up and down the line and shouting instructions.

"It's hard making that adjustment to watching and not being out there, and I got an insight into some of the frustrations of being a coach, but it was an absolutely brilliant result and our defence was outstanding."

Short was originally brought on board at the Mangotsfield club as forwards coach before the summer departure of Aaron James provided the chance to take a bigger role in proceedings.

He added: "The first thing I wanted to do was to get training right, to make sure the guys enjoy themselves and want to come back for more. There's a good mix of young and old here and we're definitely building something, but I'm not setting any targets of where to finish in the league. I just want to see us improve each week."

Short persuaded Ben Breeze to join himself and another former Bristol colleague – Jon Pritchard – at the club. And Breeze, who quit Exeter at the end of last season because of his heavy workload as Bristol's community development manager, is enjoying combining playing with helping coach the backs.

Breeze said: "There were a lot of opportunities around the Combination for me, but I'm here as a personal favour to Pritch and Shorty, who promised me he would play before the end of the season."

Short, though, says he has no plans to pull his boots back on. "I said I'd play touch," he added with a smile.