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Nuneaton Old Edwardians 21 - Droitwich 23

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Droitwich scored a late try to snatch a hard fought victory away to Nuneaton Old Edwardians.

In the very first league meeting between the two sides it was the visitors who grabbed the early initiative with the ball moving freely along the three quarter line to find Craig Mortlemans, who showed a good turn of space to out-sprint the defence to go over for the opening score. Duncan Hughes added the conversion, before slotting a penalty shortly after when good approach work by Phil Horton, Nick Godfrey and Matt Blackmore saw the home side stray off side.

Nuneaton then hit back with a try of their own from short range. Droitwich kept up the good work with Hughes adding another penalty when Steve Poke was tackled without the ball, and another for a lineout infringement.

The home side rallied in the second half and pressurised the Droitwich line. Good defence by Craig Goode and Dean Goddard kept them at bay, but the inevitable try came to reduce Droitwich’s lead to two points at 14 - 16. The visitors then pushed forward for the winning try, but with five minutes to go a dropped pass in the Droitwich centres was seized upon by the home side, who raced 70 metres to score under the posts for what seemed like the winning score.

Droitwich did not concede defeat however, with Hughes timing a clever pass to man of the match John Critchlow to make a sharp break, who then fed winger Sean Walker to go over under the posts. Hughes inevitably added the conversion to see Droitwich home by the slenderest of margins.

This was a hard fought and thoroughly deserved victory for the Spa side and leaves them in third place in the league.

Full back Ben Cottrell, returning from injury for his first game for six weeks, pointed out the significance of the win, “To come here and walk away with the spoils is an excellent achievement. We never gave up and showed all the sharpness we have acquired on the training ground. We’re really up and running this season.”

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