Widden Old Boys have plenty to look forward to over the final couple of months of the rugby season.

Their 2023/24 Counties 3 Gloucestershire North campaign is nearing the finish line and head of rugby Neil Bennett would love to see them end the season in the top four.

They’ve had a pretty decent campaign, with the standout performance undoubtedly their thrilling 25-22 win over long-time leaders Gloucester Old Boys in mid-January.

The end-of-season cup competitions, always a highlight of the season, will soon be getting under way with Bennett saying: “We got to the semi-finals of the Papa John’s last season, so we got a taste of success and the clear aim is to go one step further.”

And if they did it would truly represent a very successful season for a club who celebrated their centenary in 2022.

Bennett, who is in his fourth season as the club’s head of rugby, wants the club to do well, of course he does, but he is also realistic about what the club can achieve.

“Success for me is about building and maintaining a rugby club and getting as many players as possible to enjoy playing the game,” he said.

Bennett loves everything and anything to do with rugby, although he readily admits it wasn’t his first sporting love.

“It was always football for me,” said the London-born 47-year-old. “I didn’t play my first game of rugby until I moved to Gloucester when I was 14.

“I went to Sir Thomas Rich’s School and playing rugby was compulsory.”

Fortunately, it was a sport he took to straight away, so much so that he soon started playing junior rugby for Old Richians.

He continued to play football for a while – he played in centre midfield for Hucclecote – but it was clear that rugby was becoming his number one sport.

“It’s the ultimate team game, I fell in love with it,” he said.

“In football someone can score a wonder goal from 30 yards, that sort of thing doesn’t happen in rugby unless you’re Jonah Lomu.

“Forwards and backs have to work together in a cohesive unit to get from one end of the pitch to the other to have a chance of scoring.”

And there is another part of the game which also appeals hugely to Bennett.

“You can play for 80 minutes, have a real battle, but then shake hands at the final whistle and talk about the game in the bar afterwards,” he said.

Bennett was a centre or a 10 back in the day and was pretty decent because he was captain of rugby at Tommy’s.

He was at Old Richians for 17 years and played a good number of games for the club’s flagship team, although he was predominantly a 2^nd XV player.

Then at the age of 31, Bennett, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, decided to move to Australia.

And it wasn’t a move that lasted six or 12 months – he spent 10 years Down Under.

“I played rugby for seven years for Waverley in New South Wales,” he said. “It was the best rugby experience of my life.

“I played with all these different nationalities - Australians, Maoris, French, Irish, Welsh, German - it was fantastic.”

And when he finished playing he remained very much part of the club, because he got involved on the coaching side.

“That was really enjoyable,” he said. “Ben Evans, the former Wales and Cardiff prop, was one of the coaches there. He had a big influence on me, both as a coach and as a person.”

Bennett, who lives in Kingsway, returned to this part of the world in the summer of 2018 and it wasn’t long before he was back in rugby.

“I became director of rugby at Norton,” he said. “I was there for two years, it was a very enjoyable experience although very tough.

“One of the challenges was that we had Tewkesbury and Bredon Star on one side and Longlevens on the other, recruitment was always a problem.”

That’s a problem that many clubs face, of course, although Bennett is happy to report that Widden are still running a 2^nd XV.

Their junior section also boasts five teams with the club, hoping that a good number of those youngsters will go on to play adult rugby in years to come.

“I’m very happy at the club,” Bennett said. “When I started we had just four, five or six players turn up for training.

“It’s the simple things that make a rugby club and at the heart of it is a strong sense of community.

“We have engaged with the community and want to drive the club forward.”

Bennett, who plays cricket for Quedgeley and Hardwicke, is a big part of that process and he admits that he enjoys being head of rugby more than coaching or playing.

A very committed team of coaches at Widden, headed by Gavin Deane, means he doesn’t do much coaching, although he remains very much hands-on both on and off the pitch.

But while his role can be time-consuming, he remains totally committed to the cause.

“It’s not always been easy but I love Widden,” he said.