BROMSGROVE RFC kept a firm grip on the top of the Midlands 1 West table after a narrow 19-15 victory at Dudley Kingswinford last weekend, ahead of tomorrow’s home fixture with Hereford.
Dudley Kingswinford went closest to opening the points scoring when his penalty from distance narrowly crept past the left of the posts in the opening quarter, before Bromsgrove began to grow into the game and threatened to breach the Kingswinford defence through skipper Ed Spalding.
But the hosts would break through when strong play on the left-wing saw the ball distributed to Charlie Baffour, who prompted to ride the challenge of a couple of tackles to waltz through unopposed and score the first try, Sam Vaughan’s conversion making it 7-0.
The Boars responded by putting their opponents on the back-foot as they forced Dudley further back into their own territory, earning a number of penalties that eventually saw Ethan Priest cross the hosts try line and Adam Whiteman convert to level the scoreline.
The restart changed momentum once more and Dudley Kingswinford soon found themselves back in front before the break with a Vaughan penalty being kicked accurately between the posts to make the scoreline 10-7.
It took some fine work from a scrum position after a penalty was awarded to unleash a move that opened up Dudley and earned Bromsgrove a converted try to nudge themselves in front at half-time through Josh Holt and a Whiteman conversion.
Bromsgrove emerged after the interval on the hunt to further their advantage, doing exactly that after a move saw Bromsgrove out-number Dudley by three players to two, Holt bursting through for his second try of the afternoon, but with Whiteman failing to put away the conversion, the scoreline stood at 19-10.
Drew Harper found himself in the sin bin after a no-arms tackle, but Bromsgrove were relatively unscathed by what Dudley threw at them during this period and held firm.
They did however find themselves breached in the dying stages of the game as Kingswinford broke through Bromsgrove for their third try, Matt Perks drawing the Bromsgrove defence to shift the ball out wide to Matt Squires – who clambered over the line to close the scoreline to 19-15, but with the conversion squandered.
Bromsgrove attempted to secure a fourth try to kill the game off once and for all, but were unable to find the extra points, as the Boars maintained their place at the top of the pile.
