Old Richians are looking to their young guns to fire them onwards and upwards.

Two successive promotions have catapulted the Gloucester club into the rarified heights of Western Counties North – and the last time they played level seven rugby was at the start of the millennium.

“We’ve got a young team,” said club president Pat Strutt. “We had three 17-year-olds make their debuts in our opening game of the season.”

The trio – Tyler Malcolm, Jamie Mayall and Arnas Rakauskas – may be too young to write a cross in a voting booth but they certainly had the X factor that day as Old Richians defeated Oldfield Old Boys 20-17.

The Western Counties North is an unforgiving league – Cirencester were relegated from it last season – and Strutt has been around long enough to know that there will be downs as well as ups this season.

“There are some big teams in this division,” he said. “Teams like Cheltenham, Stroud, Coney Hill and Chosen Hill. We’re entering the unknown to a certain extent.”

They may be entering the unknown but they are at least going into battle knowing that they have one of rugby’s finest warriors guiding them.

Terry Fanolua, a legendary Gloucester centre for a decade from the mid-90s, is in his second season as Director of Rugby at the club and he’s lost none of the competitive spirit that made him such a hero during his time at Kingsholm.

“Talk to Terry and he’ll tell you that we can win promotion again,” said Strutt. “He’ll tell you that there’s no point going out on the pitch unless you are going to try to win.

“He’s been great for us and it’s great that someone like him is happy to put something back into local rugby.”

Strutt, of course, has been putting plenty into Old Richians for the best part of 40 years.

“I made my first-team debut in 1978,” the former centre said with some pride. “I captained the side for a season and was still playing when the club last played at level seven.”

And it’s not just Strutt who has put his heart and soul into the club.

“We all owe a lot to Doug White who has put so much time and effort into the development of the club over the last 13 years,” Strutt said.

It’s been a busy start to the campaign for the Gloucester club. They’ve already played host to BT Sport, who filmed one of their programmes from their clubhouse, now their supporters are hoping that captain and fly-half Mike Spencer-Tonks has his players switched on for the remainder of the season.