It’s been tough going for Lydney this season but despite their troubles, club stalwart Dave Bennett is still managing to smile.

Bennett is the second row who has been with the club for the best part of two decades, starting off as a youngster in the junior set-up before graduating into senior rugby.

Now 31, Bennett said: “Yes, it has been difficult, but Lydney are my club. It’s the club I grew up with and I still really enjoy playing for them.”

Brought up in St Briavels, just over seven miles from Lydney, it was almost inevitable that the young Bennett, a pupil at Wyedean School, would follow his older brothers Sam and Aaron, and be attracted to all things Regentsholme.

“I started playing for Lydney when I was about 13,” Bennett said.

And he clearly had something about him, even at that early age, because he progressed quickly.

“I was playing for Lydney Colts by the time I was 15,” he added. “At the time we had a very strong fixture list. We’d play a lot of the Welsh clubs and matches could be pretty feisty.”

Feisty they may have been but Bennett’s willingness to take on all-comers was noted by those that matter at the top end of the club, and he was soon being pushed through into senior rugby.

“I made my debut for the first team when I was 17,” he said. “It was in the days when Lydney were in National Two South when the likes of Paul Kiely and Paul Price were playing.”

They were good times for the club, of course, but Bennett’s time with Lydney was interrupted when his studies took him north to Loughborough University.

But although he had left the Forest, he did not stop playing rugby.

“I played for Leicester Lions in National Two North,” said Bennett. “That was the same level that Lydney were playing back then but it was semi-professional at Leicester Lions – if you played you got paid.”

Leicester Lions are the club once graced by England and British Lions legend Martin Johnson and, unlike Lydney, were one of the bigger hitters in terms of resource of the clubs playing at that level.

“I’ve always said that for a lot of the time Lydney, at the level we have been playing, have been outmatched in terms of funding, squad size and access to players,” Bennett said.

“We played teams like Henley, Barking, Esher, Richmond and Jersey. I remember we played a pre-season friendly against Ealing and they had Sam Vesty in their team.

“But we were always competitive.”

And Bennett believes that Lydney have been competitive for much of this season even though it looks like they may well be dropping out of South West Premier.

The turnover of coaching staff hasn’t helped, but Bennett is hoping that the club can enjoy a period of stability even if they do find themselves playing in South West One West next season.

And at whatever level they’re playing, running out at Regentsholme remains a special feeling.

“It’s a fantastic ground,” said Bennett. “There aren’t many places that have the same atmosphere or support.

“The support really is something else. Sometimes you can go to some grounds and there is just a man and a dog watching but that’s not the case at Lydney.

“The fans really know their rugby and love their rugby.”

And Bennett, who took last season off because of work commitments – he teaches science at St John’s-on-the-Hill School in Chepstow – and because he had a knee injury, wants to keep on playing in front of the Regentsholme faithful for as long as he can.

“I really missed playing rugby last season,” the one-time Gloucestershire under-20 player admitted. “I’ve played around 150 first-team games and I’d like to get to 200 or more.

“That’s the benchmark at Lydney. We’ve got the 200 Club at Lydney and anyone who gets in it has earned their stripes.”

So what type of player is Bennett?

“I think I’m quite an athletic second row,” he said. “I’m 6ft 5in so the lineout is obviously very important for me as is the set-piece. But I’m not one of those gym junkies you might expect me to be as a modern second row!”

And while he’s not lifting weights, he certainly lifting the next generation of rugby players at St John’s-on-the-Hill to new heights, because the under-11s, who he coaches, were unbeaten last term.

“What’s nice is that quite a few of them are part of the junior set-up at Lydney, so they’re still playing together,” he said.

“Our youth set-up is tremendous. Gareth Williams heads it up and he puts an awful lot into the club. We’ve got a lot of coaches which is great.”

So is that something that Bennett, who lives in Lydney, fancies in the future?

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “I’ve refereed a couple of under-15 games but I prefer coaching.”

That’s good news for Lydney Rugby Club … and it’s good news for the next generation of rugby players.