Cinderford Rugby Club’s top-half finish in National League One after winning promotion the previous campaign represented a hugely successful 2018/19 campaign.

They finished eighth in the 16-strong division above the likes of Chinnor, Sale, Moseley and Esher.

They start the new campaign at one of those clubs – Sale – on Saturday 7th September with director of rugby Paul Morris insisting the club will be looking at the very least to match last season’s achievement.

“We are so massively punching above our weight,” said Morris, “but we want to finish as high as we can.

“We’re not going to talk about just staying up, we didn’t last season. We want to progress and we’ll go into every game – home or away – thinking we can win whatever the odds against us.”

There are some big clubs with big budgets in this division – the third tier in English rugby – and Morris added: “We have to compete on hard work. It’s exhausting but it’s a lot of fun when we get it right and we got it right a lot of the time last season.

“We haven’t got the resources of some of the other clubs but the aim is to keep shocking clubs who should be wiping the floor with us as well as shocking our supporters.

“We want to finish eighth or better this season and we will somehow find a way to improve. Writing off Cinderford is a mistake and if we do get a hiding we bounce back.

“What we need to do is consistently win the big moments in games, we don’t always do that. If we do that then we’ll be a handful.”

Morris has never been backwards in coming forwards both as a player at Old Patesians where he developed into a very successful place-kicking scrum-half and as a coach at Cheltenham North and Coney Hill before moving onto Cinderford.

And that tunnel-vision determination to succeed has been reflected by Cinderford’s flagship team since he took on the top job some three-and-a-half years ago.

“There’s a belligerence at Cinderford that I like,” he said. “I like it in players, I like it in supporters and I like it in the coaching staff.

“I remember once getting called truculent a few years ago. I had to look it up because I didn’t know what it meant and it said ‘a higher form of belligerence’.

“I took that as a compliment even though I don’t think it was meant to be one!”

Cinderford travel to Llandovery on Saturday 17th August (3pm) for the first of three pre-season games. They host Newport five days later (7.30pm) and Hinckley on Saturday 31st August (3pm).

Their first home league game of the season is against Plymouth Albion on Saturday 14th September.