EMBARKING on their upcoming season on Saturday, Salisbury RFC’s three teams closed their pre-season accounts with excellent victories at Royal Wootton Bassett.

The firsts came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders and, with a little more composure, should have been defending a larger lead early on.

The visitors looked to vary their point of attacks at all times. Josh Green and Liam Gilbert carried from the base strongly, half backs Dave Tonge and Olly Davis continually kept the defence guessing, and Jon Goldsmith and Dom Porter thundered into the contact area on several occasions.

Gilbert opened up the scoring when driven over by his pack and Tom Pottage added the extras before Bassett enjoyed their best period of the game. This combined launching a wave of attacks at the City line but the defence was superb, although a try was conceded before half time.

After the break another huge defensive effort kept the home side from adding to their score before Pottage broke clear to increase the lead with a try he converted himself.

Salisbury were slowly gaining the upper hand and added further tries from Pottage and Goldsmith to seal a well-deserved victory.

Coach Dan Jeffries, whose side open their account at home to Frome on Saturday, said: “The squad looked strong, we were deadly in attack and Goldsmith looked excellent. I was very happy with the way our lineout functioned through Gilbert, Ian Miller and Tom Ranoboldo.”

Other battling performances were displayed from the A XV and United, both providing curtain-raisers against their north Wiltshire counterparts.

The A XV were involved in a tense struggle with Bassett until the last 20 minutes, when the benefit of this year’s pre-season fitness training came to light, leaving with a comfortable 7-40 win.

United, who had coach Jeffries play at scrum half, steered the Castle Road side to a winning margin of 14-33.