Stourbridge Lions 7 - Droitwich 23

Saturday 1st December 2007

Tries by Craig Mortlemans, Steve Poke and Sean Walker were enough to give Droitwich a well earned victory at Stourbridge on Saturday. The win sees them consolidate their 2nd place position in the league.

The cold, blustery wind made rugby difficult, but to their credit both sides tried to keep the ball moving, with the home side looking especially dangerous from broken play.

But it was Droitwich who took the lead through a Matt Blackmore penalty after a good drive forward by Greg Garfield. Blackmore doubled the lead with another effort from similar range after Poke was taken out without the ball.

Then strong scrummaging saw the ball moved quickly—fly half Jonny Critchlow threw a long pass to Ross Coombes who broke through the gain line to feed Sean Walker, who put a clever pass inside to Mortlemans who powered over. This made the score eleven nil and this is how it remained until the half time interval.

The second period began with Droitwich going up a gear and effectively killing off the game in the first 10 minutes. Strong running by Critchlow, ably supported by the tireless Nick Godfrey, saw Droitwich win a scrum on the Stourbridge line. Number 8 Jon Andrews picked from the base to hold the defence, before passing to Poke to power his way over.

More good running, this time by James Protherough and Ben Cottrell, saw prop James Shewell in support. He thundered towards the line before delivering a neat pass to full back Walker to go over unopposed. Blackmore added the tricky conversion in the swirling wind.

Droitwich seemed to now have a thirst for tries and pounded the home line. A series of lineouts made it seem like a score was inevitable. Godfrey went close as did Ben Thomas, but desperate defence and handling errors saw the score remain the same.

A dropped pass in the Stourbridge ‘22 was hacked down field. Poke covered back, but was unable to get the ball to safety to allow the home side to reduce the deficit.

A satisfying day for the Spa side who will be happy with the two points although may be a little concerned about their inability to convert pressure into points. After the game man of the match Steve Poke added “The icy wind made handling difficult, but we had a game plan and stuck to it. The three tries we scored were all down to support play and team work, which is especially pleasing.”

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