Two late Ross Laidlaw penalties secured Rosslyn Park a 22-17 win over Cinderford on Saturday.

Park deserved their win, playing the more enterprising rugby, but their own errors kept Cinderford in the game to the extent that it took Laidlaw's penalties to bring home the bacon – far closer than it really should have been.

Park started into a significant wind, but attacked and won an early penalty that was blown off course. Cinderford countered, won a penalty on the Park 22 and full back Trigg kicked them to a 3-0 lead.

The home side replied with a good attack up the right, Parsons prominent, and after weathering a succession of pick-and-drives, the visitors conceded the inevitable penalty for Laidlaw to equalise.

Park continued to attack, but suffered an early injury blow when flanker Harry Rowland had to depart the fray.

The try that eventually gave Park the lead was a superb passage of rugby. With full-back Ed Lewis-Pratt involved from the start, some superb running and inter-passing took Park to the opposition 22, where there was no obvious gap until Lewis-Pratt received the ball running forward, made a neat chip over a defender, caught the ball himself and in a single motion flicked a pass to Miles Mantella who went over by the posts. Laidlaw’s conversion put them ahead by 10-3 after 25 minutes.

But rather than immediately consolidate their advantage Park made a complete horlicks of the restart, knocking-on from the kick-off and immediately conceding a penalty for offside which allowed Trigg to kick his side back to 10-6.

Despite playing into the stiff breeze, Park continued to dominate and a great move between Will Robinson and Lewis-Pratt looked really dangerous until penalised for not releasing. But when Park were themselves penalised out wide Trigg was able to float his penalty on the wind and in off the far post to close the lead to a single point. Almost on the stroke of half time the full back had a slightly easier chance, but this time sliced it allowing Park to reach the interval with a 10-9 lead.

After enjoying significantly more attacking possession, and with the breeze no longer favouring the opposition, there was a general expectation that Park would ease away in the second period, but it proved not to be that easy.

Cinderford came out firing on all cylinders and an early attack saw handling errors behind their own line force Park to concede a five-metre scrum, after which they got caught offside to allow Trigg to kick his side to a 12-10 lead.

That was short-lived when the visitors conceded a penalty just inside their own half, but out wide. Laidlaw made it look easy to snatch back the lead, and soon nailed another to stretch it to 16-12.

The home side returned to the attack and another gallop by Parsons found his side camped again inside the 22 but somehow Cinderford cleared their lines. Back came Park, this time with a strong run by Lewis-Pratt, leading to some neat play to within a whiff of the posts but they were penalised for offside before the move could develop further.

It was a major blow when Lewis-Pratt was clobbered taking a superb high defensive catch and could take no further part in the match.

But Park looked in no real danger until, with eight minutes to go, they were penalised for delaying a throw-in at the lineout and were sufficiently indisciplined to then be marched back a further 10 metres.

Cinderford launched an all-out attack with centre Scourfield nearly making the line before replacement Allen forced his way over. Trigg sliced a routine conversion but at 16-17 Park had not much time to save a match that should comfortably have already been theirs.

Park immediately attacked out wide on the right, won a penalty, and Laidlaw had to kick a chance which would have been difficult enough without the pressure of the final result apparently hanging on it.

There is no better man than the experienced fly half in this situation and he nailed it right through the middle.

Park returned to the attack as the clock ran down, Dom Shabbo had a good run at the defence, who eventually conceded a penalty under pressure for Laidlaw to make it 22-17 with the last kick of the match.

Park deserved their win overall, but they did seem to make it more difficult for themselves than it really should have been, which should not detract at all from an obdurate and committed performance from Cinderford, who belied their lowly league position to make the home side work hard for their win.

Park: Lewis-Pratt (Rudd); Parsons, Shabbo, Robinson, Mantella; Laidlaw; Barr (Baxter); Ovens, Richmond (Morris), Ward; Lloyd-Jones, Anderson; Rowland (Campbell), Barrett, Trayfoot.

Sub (did not play): Huggett.

Park scorers: Mantella (T), Laidlaw (5P, C).