Travelling to play relegation threatened Old Cooperians was always going to be difficult for a confident Diss outfit and in the end it took a late try from Peter Bray to secure a hard-fought success.

In what proved to be a very feisty encounter, the visitors eventually came out on top due to yet another dominant performance from their forwards.

Old Cooperians had nothing to lose and played with a huge amount of passion and at times stretched Diss with an accomplished counter-attacking game.

On 10 minutes Diss attacked from within their own half and lost possession in midfield, allowing the hosts to move fast ball wide on the right to score an unconverted try.

Diss responded by stringing together a number of attacking phases close to the breakdown that set up an attacking five metre scrum. They totally dominated this facet of the game all afternoon and rolled Old Cooperians over their own line, allowing captain Fraser Hall the opportunity to score.

Diss then lost Paul Cayley with a yellow card for a line-out offence and Charlie Crotty and an Old Cooperians player were also sin- binned. As the half drew to a conclusion, Diss attacked wide on the right and released debutant Ewan Lawton who stepped inside his defender to score and take Diss into a deserved half-time lead.

Old Cooperians responded in a most positive fashion at the beginning of the second half and scored a well taken try to leave the scores level at 10-10. Midway through the half the home side attacked on half way and following a dangerous tackle, Jamie Burroughs was shown a red card to reduce Diss to 14 players. This reverse did not however halt the Diss juggernaut which now attacked around the fringes at every opportunity but, following a loss of possession, Old Cooperians were awarded a penalty at a ruck which extended their lead to 13-10 with 10 minutes remaining.

Diss reacted superbly with man-of-the-match Ryan Carter leading the way. Crotty, Hall, Chris Craven and John Bergin all carried possession deep into the Old Cooperians half and following a ruthless rolling maul, Bray crashed over to score the decisive try. Jack Peacock stepped up to convert and Diss saw out the final eight minutes with consummate ease.

Diss Colts beat Ipswich Colts 15-8 in the Eastern Counties Cup.

• Wisbech reached the regional semi-finals of the RFU Junior Vase on Saturday when they won 19-12 at Cheshunt.