Cheltenham head to all-conquering Matson tomorrow with their director of rugby Jack Petelo determined that his team put on a show.

It won’t be easy. The Gloucester club have been a class apart in Regional 2 Severn this season, winning all 13 of their league games and opening up a 13-point lead at the top of the table.

“It’s going to be a tough, tough one,” admitted Petelo, who saw his side record their fourth league win of the season at the weekend when they defeated Keynsham 33-26 at the Newlands.

Matson’s marvellous form is a continuation of the dominance they showed in 2021/22 when they won Western Counties North with the perfect record of played 24, won 24, scoring more than 1,000 points along the way.

And yet Petelo takes heart from the game between the two teams earlier in the season at Newlands when Cheltenham went very close to ending Matson’s long unbeaten run.

Matson returned to Gloucester with a narrow 29-24 win and Petelo said: “They scored two early tries but then we came back at them, it was a helluva game.

“We had a good side out and gave them a great game, we just came up short.”

Cheltenham came up just short in the Western Counties North title race last season, too, although it was still a very fine season, one that saw them finish runners-up.

They lost just three games in the league all season – two of them were to Matson – in a campaign that saw them win 20 and draw one.

This season has been more challenging. They are in seventh place in the 11-strong division and trail Matson by 32 points having played a game more, but Petelo said: “We’ve had a lot of injuries and although we’ve lost quite a few games, a lot of them have been close. We’re competitive.”

Cheltenham have gained more bonus points – 14 – than any other team in the division and 10 of those have been try bonus points, so scoring tries has not been an issue.

Tries may be tougher to come by tomorrow but Petelo wants his men to give it their best shot.

“We’re going to try to keep the ball for as long as we can and attack as much as we can,” he said.

“We’ve got to go for it. When we play our own game we do well. We want the backs to have the ball, we try to play open attacking rugby.”

Petelo knows it won’t be easy though.

“They’ve got good forwards who have played together for a long time,” he said. “They’ve all come through the age groups.

“They’ve got good backs too, they’ve got a really, really good side.”