Cinderford United secured the Counties 2 Gloucestershire title in impressive style with a game to spare on Saturday.

They won 52-12 at Tewkesbury and go into the final game of the season at home to Cheltenham North at the weekend with a nine-point cushion between themselves and the chasing pack.

A win against the North would make it 20 from 22 games and a bonus-point win would take them to 100 league points for the season.

Frampton Cotterell, the only team who could have overhauled Cinderford before Saturday’s fixtures, were beaten 39-38 at Cheltenham North two days ago.

The South Gloucestershire club have dropped to third behind St Mary’s Old Boys, but even a win would not have been enough to keep them in the title race.

It means a speedy return to Counties 1 Western North for Cinderford United after last season’s relegation – they’ll be up against the likes of Gordon League and Cheltenham in 2026/27 – and manager Paul Morris is understandably delighted with how the season has gone.

“We’ve won all the big games,” he said. “We beat Frampton home and away, Smiths home and away and we beat St Mary’s in January.”

St Mary’s did get the better of Cinderford at the start of October – Old Patesians also beat them in a thriller in February – but Morris, a former Pats scrum-half, added: “We’re a far stronger team now than at the start of the season, without a doubt.

“We’ve kept it going, we’ve kept the players interested, we’ve got good Cinderford boys in the team.”

The arrival of player/coaches George Evans and Danny Pointon during the season has certainly helped in a campaign which has seen Morris use 61 players.

Pointon played fly-half on Saturday and Morris said: “It was an exhausting game but we got exactly what we wanted. We didn’t want it to go to the final game of the season.

“I think it had been playing on the players’ minds a bit. We were up against a side who didn’t give up, but in the end we overpowered them in all departments.

“The players deserve a lot of credit, I’ve got a lot of time for them.”

Cinderford have had some tough battles over the past month, winning by five points at Smiths and just a point at Stroud 10 days ago, and Morris continued: “It hasn’t been easy, everybody wants to beat us.

“The league has been a better standard than I thought it would be and we have our own problems.

“We never know what the team will be until after training on a Thursday evening and we can still lose a player to the first team on a Saturday morning.”

Morris, who is 64, took charge of Cinderford United last season after previously serving as the club’s director of rugby for eight-and-a-half years.

He’s also coached Old Pats, Cheltenham North and Coney Hill as well as Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire Under-20s, and he said: “I’ve been fortunate to be involved in numerous league and cup wins over many seasons.

“You don’t win them without good players and those good players tend to be good people.

“That extends to the support crew of coaches, kit men and medical support.

“Supporters play their part, too. We’ve got a great support crew at Cinderford for both the 1sts and United. I like winning and I like winning for Cinderford Rugby Club.”

So will he still be in charge next season?

“We’ll see,” he said. “I have only one way of doing a job like this, it’s all consuming. I’m driven when I take on a rugby task.

“But having taken them up I think it would be the right thing to do.”

More immediately, Morris wants to end the league campaign with a win on Saturday, although he’s not taking anything for granted.

“Fair play to Cheltenham North because they’ve beaten Smiths and Frampton in successive weeks,” he said.

“We didn’t over-celebrate on Saturday, we’ve got to go to the well one more time. We haven’t been beaten at home this season and we want to keep that record.”