Centre Aaron Rice continued his remarkable form with all four of his side’s tries, but not without a helping hand from midfield partner Dean Ashfield, whose impressive offloading in a man of the match display, put Rice away for three of his haul.

Full-back Mike Taylor was almost faultless from the kicking tee, notching seven out of eight kicks to finish with 18 points.

Clevedon, though, were slow off the mark and received a rude awakening when the powerful Chard pack drove over for the first score of the afternoon.

Taylor reduced the deficit with the first of four penalties, before Ashfield and Rice combined in the midfield to put the latter in under the posts for his tenth try of the season.

Taylor added the conversion for a 10-3 lead and minutes later slotted a 40-metre penalty from the right-hand touchline to extend the visitors’ lead further.

Clevedon had now hit top gear and after Oscar James made good yardage down the right wing, Carpenter swung the ball right to left, where Ashfield broke a tackle before offloading to the supporting Rice who muscled over from close range.

Taylor’s conversion opened up a 20-5 lead and his third penalty made it 23-5 – but it could have been more emphatic, with Mike Lowis having a try ruled out, following a sweeping backs move and an expertly executed chip-and-chase.

Now playing up the slope, Clevedon made a positive start to the second half and good work in the scrum earned them a penalty, which Taylor stroked between the uprights for a 21-point lead.

But back came Chard and some ill discipline in the Clevedon ranks allowed the home side an easy route into the 22 – and they took full advantage, earning two penalty tries, while Clevedon had both Neil Tucker and Harley Foley sin-binned.

At 26-19 it was game on, but Clevedon struck the killer blow on 65 minutes, when they crossed for a third carbon-copy try of the afternoon to put the result beyond doubt, as Ashfield’s sublime offload out of the tackle set Rice on the way to a second successive hat-trick.

Clevedon put the icing on the cake with two minutes left to play, when a smart turnover from Chris Warren freed up the backline once again, and neat hands from Carpenter, Ashfield and Taylor saw Rice surge over for his and Clevedon’s fourth of the afternoon to seal a bonus-point win.