BUOYED by the return of star trio Elye Darragh, Chris Roshier and Charlie Hix, Royal Wootton Bassett stormed to their most convincing South West One (East) win of the season yet against Wimborne.

Darragh weighed in with two tries while he was strongly supported by Alex Plows, who also grabbed a brace, in addition to Conor Tomley, Gavin Ougan and Alma Volavola’s solo efforts.

Couple the above tries with Tomley’s four conversions and Bassett earned themselves a confidence-boosting 43-0 win over their Dorset rivals – a far cry from the club’s 3-13 win in Dorset back in late October.

Seemingly unstoppable Old Centralians registered another fine win (61-12) at home to Beaconsfield, meaning Bassett made no ground on their main promotion rivals.

But the pressure remains firmly on the Gloucestershire club, with both teams scheduled to meet on the final day of the season (April 18) at Ballards Ash.

Back to Saturday’s game, and Bassett coach Alan Low was pleasantly surprised by his squad’s ball-handling ability in poor weekend conditions owing to the arrival of Storm Dennis.

He said: “I don’t recall us making a handling error for the first 20 minutes, which was fantastic given the conditions.

“The boys were really focused, and from our young group is was a very professional performance.

“There was a lot of talk about the weather in the build up to the game, and that could’ve affected players quite badly. But there was no messing around, and we were very accurate.”

Though the mentioned trio returned, Low was again without the services of Ethan Stock and Maikeli Volavola – both of whom were away representing the South-West.

Jesse Outlaw and Joe Pettit were missing too because of university commitments. Naturally, to watch his side register a to-nil win under the circumstances thrilled Low.

He added: “Having those three back was great, the front five played extremely well – and it’s a boost ahead of Banbury the weekend after this.

“We’ll ask players to take a look at Banbury and the video from when we played them earlier this season.

“We’ll try and keep our game plan player-led while looking for trends and themes. As a coach, we’ll highlight the key areas for us to work on.”

Bassett will enjoy a weekend off before they visit Banbury on Saturday, February 29. The loser of that game will almost certainly miss out on winning automatic promotion should Old Centralians win at Chippenham.

Meanwhile, in Southern Counties South, Swindon also kept a clean sheet as they thumped Thatcham 33-0 to stay third and keep the pressure on promotion hopefuls Grove and Frome.

Swindon College Old Boys also won, they surprised Yeovil with an 8-6 win.