Keresley 0 - Droitwich 22

Sunday, 21st January, 2007

Droitwich maintained their strangle hold on Midlands Division 4 West on Saturday with a hard fought victory at Warwickshire side Keresley. The home side, however, made table topping Droitwich work tirelessly for their victory with a committed display which did not reflect their lowly league position.

On a sticky pitch the visitors failed to really produce any flowing rugby in the first period with the only score being a touchdown by the evergreen backrow forward Nick Godfrey. The score followed a lineout take by Paul Sweeney, the Spa pack then driving towards the line and enabling Godfrey to get the score.

Droitwich also had to re-organise with both Sweeney and Mark Strut leaving the field with injuries to be replaced by Craig Goode and the effervescent James Davies.

The remainder of the half was a scrappy affair with the score five to nil at the interval.

The second period saw the tempo of the game raised although the visitors were constantly frustrated by the determined Keresley defence; but good ball along the back line saw Davies use his pace and power to score in the corner to double the lead.

Pressure by Droitwich forced a five metre scrum for number 8 Jim Richardson who picked up and surged over to put the game beyond doubt.

Backrow colleague, Phil Horton, then took a pass from Richardson on half way to show a superb turn of pace and sprint in under the posts for Droitwich’s fourth and final try. Sean Walker added the conversion.

The win keeps Droitwich on top of the league with a four point cushion, which will greatly please the coaching staff, although front-row forward, Greg Garfield, was keen to warn against complacency after the match, adding “we worked hard and came away with the spoils, but we’ll not be throwing any parties just yet. The whole squad is fully aware of the amount of work we still have to do to if we want to wrap this league up.”

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