NEWENT Rugby Club's herculean efforts to clear their pitch of snow paid off on Saturday, even though they never got to kick a ball.

An army of around 30 players from the firsts and seconds, club juniors, parents, girlfriends and supporters worked tirelessly against the odds from around 9am until 11.30am in a desperate bid to get their Gloucestershire League One game on.

All the hard work seemed worthwhile when referee Ray Puttock inspected the pitch and deemed it playable.

However, that came as a giant shock to opponents Gloucester Old Boys.

They wrongly assumed the game would be off and did not have a team ready and available to play.

It resulted in Newent being awarded the match and five points – with third-placed Old Boys being docked five points for not fulfilling the fixture.

Newent captain Tristan Veale said: "We told Gloucester Old Boys we would notify them with a decision on the game at 11am on Saturday morning.

"We would rather have played, but the hard work was worth it to get the points.

"We've got a couple of games to catch up on already, plus cup matches to fit in, so we wanted to play if we could."