STAR winger Craig Smith said he could not put in a man-of-the-match performance against Old Elizabethans last Saturday if it was not for his team-mates.

Smith scored four tries to help Ross to an emphatic win in Gloucester 2 West.

Ross have now won their opening three games of the season and sit second in the table."

“I did well and got on the end of some nice play by the rest of the team,” said Smith.

“But the tries didn’t come from me solo, it was the rest of the team getting it out to me.

“I just finished them off.

“We work on all sorts of different movements in training and it was an all round good performance.

“We played well and moved the ball out wide when we needed to

“The forwards played well and we had a strong scrummage.”

The first 20 minutes were very even, with Ross finding it difficult to get the ball out wide.

But once they opened the scoring, they blitzed their opponents.

The first came from Chay Brine in the 30 minute, which was converted by Huw Bellamy.

Smith then grabbed his first try following great play by Josh Morgan and Joe Brearley, before Old Elizabethans reduced the arrears when Adam Ralls went over the line.

Dom Swann converted to make it 12-7 to Ross.

But Ross extended their lead shortly before the break through a Simon Gwynne try.

Casey Morgan grabbed try number four in the 52nd minute to make it 24-7, before Old Elizabethans scored their second try through Pete Able.

But Ross then raced away with the game, with Gavin Oates getting on the score-sheet by driving over in the corner .

A brilliant move by Ross saw Gwynne feed Smith for the best try of the match in the 67th minute, before Smith got on the end of another chance two minutes later.

And it was Smith who finished the scoring shortly before the end, with Bellamy converting his try.

First team coach Nick Rawlins said the team has talked about promotion and that is the goal this season after finishing fifth during the past two seasons.

“We’ve got a good second team and a good squad throughout the club, but we have to take it game by game because some games will be harder than others,” said Rawlins.

“The lads are positive, there’s a good camaraderie and long may it continue.

“We’ve got good youth and have some new players coming in this season.

“A lot of the boys have been here a long time too.

“We also have four coaches and specialise doing one-on-one coaching.

“Hopefully that will help in their rugby development.

“There is a lot of good atmosphere here and it all bodes well for the future.”

Rawlins added he was delighted with last Saturday’s performance.

“We worked very hard in training and worked on a key number of things that paid off,”

“We turned over a lot of their ball and our line-outs were good.

“I was a bit surprised with the final score because in the first 20 minutes they defended and tackled very well.

“But you can only defend for so long and we ended up with the ball a lot.

“We proved a point that we could move the ball wide and score from there.”

Fly-half Huw Bellamy, who converted five of the tries, added: "We had some good handling and our discipline was good.

"It was our best game of the season.

"We have been in Gloucester 2 West for too long

"As long as we keep improving each week, we will get there I'm sure."