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Leamington 3 - Droitwich 11

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Droitwich travelled to Leamington on Saturday and produced a very efficient display to round off their league season with a win. The Spa side rested a few players ahead of next week’s promotion play off against Stoke on Trent, and fielded an exceptionally young side, with fourteen players under twenty-six years of age.

Droitwich started brightly with the tearaway back row of Phil Horton, James Davies and Andy Manns getting stuck in to supply good ball for half backs Steve Poke and Matt Blackmore to orchestrate proceedings.

Pressure led to an infringement to allow Blackmore the chance to kick a good penalty in difficult, windy conditions. The lead was doubled with a far simpler effort shortly afterwards.

The home side rallied to pressure the Droitwich line but the defence was excellent, with Davies and Dylan Jones being particularly effective in the tackle. Droitwich then lost the influential Poke with a nasty facial injury and were forced to re-organise with Ross Coombes moving to scrum half.

The second period saw Droitwich strengthen their grip on the game with the home side never really looking like threatening the Spa line. A clever kick by Coombes was chased by Simon Pearce, who raced forward to gather the ball and crash over in the corner.

As the game wore on Droitwich were happy to play for territory, mainly through the boot of Blackmore, who had an excellent game in the unfamiliar position of outside half. James Shewell made some powerful surges forward as did winger Mark Strutt.

The Droitwich coaching team will be very happy with the performance ahead of next week’s play-off game. Coach Dan Protherough added, “We came away and produced another good performance. Our tackling and general defence was first rate.”

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