Stourbridge Lions vs. Pershore Social

On a cold and sticky afternoon the visitors prevailed, to the delight of the travelling support, with a masterful mixture of youth, experience and rugby returners the telling factor.

The match started out as a hard fought battle between two evenly matched teams, with both sets of forwards making inroads into the opposition territory. Conditions, however, didn’t help and continuity was not a vastly mentioned subject over the first quarter. The teams settled down a little and played some better stuff, with the old heads of Pershore’s forwards, Graham Spiers and Marcus Fisher, as always, leading the way with the younger generation of James Kings and debutant Callum Andrews in hot pursuit. Steve Holmes, installed at ten, controlled the runners, with a similar picture in the backs, where Phil Sheppard and James Couper made the hard ground in tight and young speedsters Rory Chapman and Stef Staveley providing the finesse out wide.

An early score from Chapman settled the nerves, followed by a barracking run from Sheppard, putting the Piddle Park outfit in front, although Stourbridge were not to be outdone with a well worked try of their own. The score line remained at 10-5 until the break, all but for some fine last ditch defending to keep the home side out just on the whistle.

Following some deep breaths, and a halftime team talk, Pershore were able to extend their control in the second half, with the introduction of even greater experience from the bench, in the form of Nigel Jones and Ben Andrews, the latter forming a formidable father/son combination with Andrews the younger. Luckily the well laden bench also had some further youth to introduce, with the likes of Ash Nottingham, Steve Grosvenor and Stuart Rock adding to the youth ranks. A well worked move sent Chapman in for his second, with only last ditch defending and the unpredictable bounce denying him a hat-trick.

Stourbridge kept themselves in the hunt with a break away try, to peg the visitors back to 17-12, but with a score from Holmes, converted by Rock and a man of the match performance from Rugby Returner, Brian Bennett, the away team stretched their advantage. Good work continued from the engine room, with Steve Eades and Andy Portlock ever present ably assisted by veteran scrum half Anthony Perks.

All that remained was for the experienced heads to show the youngsters how to do it and a lung busting 20 yard dash from Jones, once again converted by Rock, meant the Pershore team ran out deserved 29-12 winners. Credit to both teams for a good afternoons rugby.