Droitwich 36 - Berkswell & Balsall 20

Saturday 16th February 2008

Droitwich eventually managed to subdue a stubborn Berkswell and Balsall side at the Memorial Ground on Saturday to keep up their push for promotion.

Several changes were made from the previous week: veteran Jon Andrews returned to number 8; and young winger Andy Vizor made his first league start.

The Spa side seemed to take an age to get out of the blocks by which time Berkswell had scored a try in the corner to take the lead. Droitwich did then get their act together with Jon Andrews scoring a try with a pick-up from the back of a ruck. Duncan Hughes converted.

Scrum half Steve Poke increased Droitwich’s lead by picking up from the back of a scrum and squeezing over in the corner.

The home side then tried to run the ball from their own ‘22, only to gift possession back to Berkswell, who used the blind side intelligently to level the score. A penalty by each side ended the scoring for the first period.

The second half saw Droitwich up their game, creating pressure in the Berkswell half, before ever alert outside half, Hughes, intercepted a loose pass to gallop 40 metres to give the Spa side the lead again.

More pressure by the home side saw them press to get the vital score to clinch victory, but crucially they were unable to go over; due mainly to good defence and over elaboration by the Droitwich side. Berkswell managed to clear their lines, and create pressure of their own to score a try, although, crucially, the simple conversion was missed to leave Droitwich with a slender two point lead with fifteen minutes to go.

The home side now managed to find another gear, and a good lineout take by Sweeney was driven dynamically by the Spa forwards, a full fifteen metres before the ever alert Nick Godfrey peeled off to score. Hughes added the conversion.

Good ground by Phil Horton set up one more attack for Matt Blackmore and Mark Strutt to make good yardage, a long pass was thrown to Critchlow who cut, incisively, through the defence to put the result out of doubt.

A satisfying display by Droitwich, which sets up an intriguing end to the season, a sentiment echoed by winger Mark Strutt “we took a while to get going today, and to be fair, Berkswell tackled very strongly, but it shows how well we have developed as a team to keep going until the chances came.”

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