Ashbourne under-13s romped to victory over visitors Dronfield on Sunday in a friendly match.
The visitors looked impressive in the build-up, fielding a number of large forwards that made the home side very wary about the physical test ahead.
As in previous games however, Ashbourne seemed to cope with the wind and snow much better than their opponents, and were able to start much stronger.
Strong ball carrying by Ashbourne was giving Dronfield problems and cold hands and even colder feet were probably contributing to the number of missed tackles by the visitors.
As is always the case when this sort of thing happens, the hosts looked like they were enjoying themselves in the blizzard that was ensuing.
The first half did not have much pattern because of the conditions, however it was Ashbourne who were able to capitalise more from all of this by scoring five tries.
The first was scored by Harry Zona, who then had to leave the field to be taken to hospital with a suspected head injury, while there were further scores from Will Farr, Charlie Hart, Jack Bowers and Al Shaw.
Two conversions from Farr made the half-time score 29-0.
Ashbourne then had to play into the wind in the second half and this, together with a rejuvenated Dronfield performance and some arbitrary refereeing decisions, made this period much tougher than the first.
All squad members were used as much as possible in this match, which caused some disturbance to the line-up of the team.
However, everyone contributed to this very competitive phase of the match.
In defence particularly, there were no weak links in the Ashbourne team, with forwards and backs making tackle after tackle as Dronfield chased the game.
The visitors did get some reward for their efforts with a try midway through the half, but Ashbourne were able to score three in reply, one each for Toby Doran, Will Mousley and Nathan McHigh.
Another conversion made the final score 46-5.
Both teams seemed to enjoy this contest, but all were also relieved to get off the pitch and seek to thaw out after another trial by blizzard.
Ashbourne will be looking for more favourable weather for their tough away match against Stoke next Sunday.
ASHBOURNE: Eley, T Edge, Howson, Doran, Hart, Mousley, Bowers (c), Young, Monteith, Beard, Dowling, Shaw, McHugh, Farr, Brown, Wainwright, Zona, Simpson Allsop, Edge, Linnell, Hellaby.
