Kidderminster Carolians 15, Droitwich15

KIDDERMINSTER Carolians may be left counting the cost of missed chances come the end of the season.

Droitwich enjoyed territorial advantage in the opening exchanges and a careless knock on by Kidder on their own tryline when under no pressure whatsoever gifted the visitors an early five metre scrum.KC’s backs were then caught offside and D’s fullback Tom Wormington made no mistake from twenty five metres with nine minutes on the clock.

Head coach Ian Bletcher brought on the experienced No 8 Layton Wilkinson and assistant coach Andy McLellan to try and bring some structure to the home side’s play.

The ploy paid off after only four minutes when from a scrum twenty five metres out fly-half George Morgan floated a long pass to McLellan coming into the line from full-back and his burst earned KC’s a penalty which they kicked to touch eight metres from D’s line.

They moved the ball from the throw and although the last pass did not go to hand play was brought back for another penalty which Morgan kicked to the five metre line and this time the forwards drove over with Wilkinson getting the touchdown for a 5-3 lead.

Kidder spurned three clear try scoring opportunities which may well have been converted had they kept things simpler.

To make matters worse,three minutes before the break scrum-half Chris Pinner was yellow carded for not rolling away at a ruck.

Five minutes into the second period Droitwich took advantage of Pinner’s absence when McLellan, filling in at No 9, had a kick charged down by the visitors’ hooker Rob Poke and with KC’s having no last line of defence he was able to gratefully drop on the ball for a try which put the Wychavon side ahead.

Three minutes later from a lineout on Carolians' ten metre line Ds' centre Mark Strutt broke through some weak tackling to cross for a try which Wormington improved.

Then a McLellan cross kick to right wing Nick Martin saw him held up but at the expense of a lineout at which Kidder once more drove for the line and after momentarily being stopped a second surge saw prop man-of-the-match Nathan Small plunge over to reduce the arrears.

Pressure told as Ds' No 6 was shown yellow card and Kidder continued to maintain their stranglehold and six minutes later the visitors were reduced to thirteen men when their No 4 was also given a yellow.

Morgan kicked a penalty and skipper Rob Delahay got the touchdown to level the scores with ten minutes left to play but a wave of concerted attacks in search of the winning score saw Droitwich hold firm.