RAMS repelled a ferocious late assault from Plymouth Albion to secure a 26-19 bonus-point win in a National One cracker at Bricklands.

The visitors were outstanding in the opening 25 minutes, repeatedly disrupting the Albion at the scrum and line-out, and their pressure was finally rewarded when a searing Connor Hayhow break set-up good territory in the home 22.

And after a couple of goes from close range, the ball was spun out wide for Henry Bird to open the Rams account.

A second score followed swiftly afterwards when the visitors’ pack again battered away at the line before Ollie Moffitt capped an outstanding performance with a try under the posts, ably supported by skipper Robbie Stapley.

Drew Humberstone knocked over the extras to make it 12-0 and seemingly put Rams in a strong position.

Yet the game turned on its head in the space of five minutes, Plymouth getting off the mark when a couple of tackles were missed before Alex Ducker cut a good line to go over on the right.

Worse was to come for the away side when Albion broke down the middle from a ruck, enabling the ball to be recycled for Setareki Raumakita to dive across the whitewash under the posts, Tom Putt adding the extras to level the scores.

Rams settled their nerves with a strong response, though, and having won a penalty advantage when a rolling maul was headed towards the hosts’ line, they continued the attack allowing Ellis Jones to power over. Humberstone’s conversion made it 19-12 at the end of a thrilling first half.

The second staff began in terrific fashion for the away side as they secured the try bonus-point.

Dynamic Ollie Cole took a quick tap penalty in his opponents’ 22 and then got the ball to Connor Stapley who went over. Humberstone was again on target from the tee.

Both sides continued to go hammer and tongs at one another, but things seemed to have tilted in Rams’ favour when Plymouth were temporarily reduced to 14 men after hooker Jamie Salter’s no-arms tackle on substitute Ollie Monye.

Yet the hosts stood firm despite Rams coming close on a couple of occasions to putting the game to bed, and they set-up a rip-roaring finale as Frankie Nowell scooted over on the right following an Ant Marris yellow card.

A magnificent touch-line conversion from Putt cut the gap to just seven points and further loudened the raucous home faithful, but despite their best efforts, they could not fashion an equalising score as Rams sealed a third consecutive bonus-point success.