CORSHAM remain without a point to their name two matches into the new Southern Counties South campaign after they went down 24-0 away at Combe Down at the weekend.

Elsewhere, Devizes found life tough going on the road as their first away match of the season ended in a 42-22 defeat at Grove.

The home side kicked off and tried to assert their dominance early on, and duly went into a 6-0 lead from two penalties at the scrum.

Devizes also lost the influential Rhys Harries to an injury but were able to muster a response as soon as they got their hands on the ball.

A burst in midfield by Josh Gould on 20 minutes saw him offload to Oli Bird, who ran to the tryline. Fergus O’Connor converted to put Devizes one point ahead.

Grove’s running was hard and direct but, by and large, the Devizes defence was comfortable.

However, things took a turn just before the break when Kieran Hiscock was sin-binned for a scrum offence and the hosts were awarded a penalty.

Grove kicked long and from the resulting lineout, assembled a maul and dotted down in the corner to make it 11-7.

O’Connor responded with a penalty in the last action of the half, with the interval score of 11-10 to Grove meaning it was game on.

The third quarter of the match did not go to plan for Devizes and the home side capitalised on a series of mistakes.

Two defensive errors and an interception pushed Grove well out in front with three converted tries.

Devizes responded when the ball was worked wide to Lewis Dodds to gallop clear and reduce the deficit to 32-15, although Grove came back themselves and scored two further unconverted tries.

In the closing minutes, Devizes continued to press and Dodds was given space to go over for his second score, with O’Connor’s conversion providing the last points of the match as the visitors were able to trim their final deficit to 20 points.