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Droitwich 18 – Old Halesonians 7

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Droitwich turned in a strong second half display on Saturday to overcome Old Halesonians in this top of the table clash.

It was the visitors who looked more assured at the start of the contest, always looking dangerous when they had the ball in hand, although strong play by the Droitwich forwards saw them advance up the field, with Jon Andrews and Matt Jupp impressing.

The visitors used the wind to kick for position and pressured the Droitwich line, before a well executed move saw the ball passed along the back line for the visitors winger to squeeze home in the corner. The difficult conversion was successfully kicked.

This seemed to spur Droitwich into life as they drove back down the field. Strong running by Jim Richardson saw him hauled down 5 metres short. Numerous times the Droitwich forwards drove at the Old Hales line, but the defence was up to the task; perhaps using the backs was an option the home side could have taken. Despite much effort Droitwich were unable to cross the line and the score remained 7 nil at the interval.

From the re-start Droitwich exerted pressure and from a scrum on the visitors ’22 No.8 Richardson picked up and charged home to score with one of his trademark thundering runs. Duncan Hughes added the tricky conversion to level the score.

The visitors came back, but the Droitwich defence was both well organised and solid, with back-row men Nick Godfrey and Phil Horton putting in a number of fine tackles.

The visitors were rewarded for their pressure with two kickable penalties, but crucially both were unsuccessful. Contrastingly, when Droitwich applied pressure, Hughes added two very tricky penalty kicks to give the home side the lead going into the final quarter.

Good spoiling work by scrum half Steve Poke saw the ball hacked up field for Horton and Richardson to win the ball and feed Ross Coombes, who in turn found Leon Hopkins. The livewire winger still had much to do, but beat three men to seal the game for Droitwich. Old Hales rallied at the death, but it was too late.

This win gives Droitwich a two point lead at the top of the table, a fact that clearly pleased coach Dan Protherough who added “we played as a team and have come away with an excellent result. To still be unbeaten at this stage of the campaign is a superb achievement.”

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