Droitwich 23 - Silhillians 21

Saturday 15th December 2007

Droitwich somehow managed to maintain their interest in the EDF Senior vase on Saturday despite an appalling first half display.

They started the game in lacklustre fashion, and despite taking an early lead through a Duncan Hughes penalty, some utterly woeful defending let the visitors outside-half breeze through for a fine individual try.

More poor organisation in the home defence allowed Sils to create pressure and again the outside half was given a free run at the line. The home side did hit back with another Hughes penalty.

Despite this Droitwich were unable to find the rhythm and teamwork that had been so evident in recent matches. However, a good break by Jon Critchlow nearly brought a score, but poor handling prevented this. At the end of the half more pressure by the visitors saw the shaky home defence breeched again despite the covering efforts of James Davies.

At 21 points to six in arrears the outlook looked grim for the Spa side, but the half time break seemed to be just what Droitwich wanted and they started the second period with renewed purpose.

Phil Horton produced some strong runs and Nick Godfrey put in a high class performance and constantly won possession for the home side.

Good work by Jon Andrews, who fed Steve Poke, won a penalty for Droitwich, which Hughes calmly slotted to reduce the deficit.

Strong work by forward Paul Sweeney, making his first start of the season after injury, saw Davies go close, before the ball was quickly moved wide for Matt Blackmore to throw an excellent pass to replacement Simon Pearce to dive over and score with his first touch of the game. Hughes, crucially, added the conversion from the touchline.

Droitwich now had their tails up and attacked at every opportunity with excellent work by Sean Walker and Ross Coombes setting up good field positions. Andrews picked up from a scrum and made good ground, before feeding hooker James Protherough to force his way over. Again Hughes was successful with the conversion.

This put the home side ahead for the first time in the match, and set them on course for an unlikely victory. The visitors came back strongly and a fine break was just hauled down by excellent work from Godfrey. This caused a nerve jangling final few minutes as Sils exerted pressure, but strong work by veteran Andrews ensured the danger was repelled.

Man of the match Godfrey said, “We were really poor at times, but we re-grouped effectively at half time and managed to come up with a victory.”

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