In-form Longlevens head to Old Centralians on Saturday looking to make it four wins out of four in Regional 2 Severn.

They saw off Cheltenham in their most recent outing – they won 31-17 – after recording victories at Witney (64-12) and Newbury Blues (36-31).

“It’s been a very good start,” said captain Josh Stratton. “We’ve picked up 15 points but none of the games have been easy, even the game against Witney was hard work despite the scoreline.”

This is Longlevens’ second season at Level 6 – they finished fourth last season and are currently fourth this time around behind Cleve, Trowbridge and Chippenham on points difference.

“The target is to be competitive in this league,” continued Stratton, who lives in Gloucester. “Ideally we want to win everything, we want to win promotion, the aim is to be in the title race at the end of the season.”

Old Centralians have won one of their three league games – 38-22 at Royal Wootton Bassett 2nds on the opening day of the season.

They lost 34-15 at home to Cleve and 23-20 in their most recent game at Newbury Blues but Stratton certainly isn’t underestimating them.

“They will be a tough test, Old Cents are never a pushover,” he said.

Stratton, a tighthead, is in his second season as captain having taken over from back row Jed Holman-Jones, who is still a regular in the 1^st XV.

The 36-year-old has previous captaincy experience with Stroud, a club he left to join Longlevens just over five years ago.

“I was captain for a season for Stroud,” he said. “It was a bit of a shock when Deacs [director of rugby Andy Deacon] nominated me but it’s a job I want to do.

“I try to lead by example, I try not to say too much until it really matters.”

Longlevens are pretty much unchanged from last season although Gloucester full-back George Barton has joined the club as backs coach.

“He’s tweaked a couple of things, but we’ve always had fast backs,” said Stratton, a former pupil at Maidenhead School.

These days the forwards are expected to play their part with ball in hand, of course, and Stratton added: “When I first started, it really was just scrum to scrum and lineout to lineout for a prop.

“Now we’ve got to be much more involved on the running side, you’ve to be fit.”