Spartans 15 - Droitwich 20

Saturday, 31st March, 2007

Droitwich finally became league champions on Saturday, but were given one of their toughest tests of the season by a strong and committed Spartans side.

With the wind and slope in their favour the visitors made the dream start as slick handling fed flying winger Leon Hopkins to race over in the corner barely two minutes into the game. Duncan Hughes added the tricky conversion.

However, the home side were not about to lay down and concede the game and came back hard at the Spa outfit and produced a series of energy sapping driving mauls, making their forward supremacy count.

As they drove towards the Droitwich line the maul was collapsed illegally and the referee awarded Spartans a penalty try. Two well struck penalties by Hughes restored the Droitwich lead at the interval.

The home side started the second period much more brightly, cutting the deficit with a penalty, before another driving maul saw them go over to take a slender two point lead.

Droitwich now found themselves in unfamiliar territory, trailing and playing against the elements. To their credit they did not panic and tried to secure a steady stream of possession.

The ball was thrown wide for Ben Cottrell to make a break before feeding Steve Poke who in turn passed to Ross Coombes to go over for the decisive score. The reliable Hughes again added the extra points.

Spartans did rally, but the Droitwich defence held firm. This now means Droitwich are league champions with one game to go.

Veteran prop Greg Garfield was clearly delighted after the match, adding “this is a superb achievement from a very talented side, in all my year playing for Droitwich this is by far the best team I have played in. We’re off away on tour next weekend, but we will be up for the Cleobury Mortimer game the week after that to give ourselves a 100% league record.”

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