Redditch RFC

Redditch continued their winning run with a convincing victory against Keresley, playing a more expansive game than of late they managed to stretch the home side across the park creating gaps which were capitalised upon throughout the game. Skipper Matt Allen was the first to take advantage of the space following a series of swift passes left and right leaving him a space through the middle to score, Will heath converted his first of four conversions.

K only had one mode of attack, through an experienced pack who would drive and link well at any opportunity, from the restart K regained possession and slowly built a little momentum which resulted in a close quarter try in the corner, well converted from the touch line to level the scores.

R hit straight back and in a devastating spell of open fluid running rugby they scored four tries that effectively settled the result before the break, Owen Binns scored the first of these to maintain his record of scoring in every league game so far this season. Virtually from the kick off Matt Allen made ground and fed Leo Fanthome who danced around forlorn tacklers and cleared 60 m to the try line. He repeated this feat minutes later cutting a clinical path through the defensive line to run in unopposed.

Shell shocked by the burst of scoring K reverted to type and killed the game, slowing everything down and slowly trying to build momentum within their forwards, a tactic that bought them time but no points. All was going well until Clarke Parker decided to liven things up and burst through a maul making 30m with K defence on the back foot, the ball was distributed along the line for Aaron Atkinson to dive over for the fifth try.

That seemed to have decided the outcome but before the break R were down to 14 men, Jack Bacciocchi was seen to throw a retaliatory punch, the referee wasn't impressed with his appeal and showed him a red card, his assailant wasn't even spoken to. K were enlivened being a man to the good and again tucked the ball up their jumpers and drove to the line succeeding in scoring their second converted try to make it 14-31 at the break.

The second half was a more cagey affair, through K were a man to the good in the pack they struggled to make it count, attacks were thwarted, passes dropped and heads dropped too as they failed time after time to make any progress against a solid defence. R were content to soak up the pressure and take their chances which bore fruit when the active Leo Fanthome skipped past his markers and fed Owen Binns who sailed unopposed under the posts.

The K forward play did pay off eventually when the R pack were harshly penalised in a goal line scrum conceding a penalty try but it was too little too late. Even when R were down to 13 men when Leo took a yellow card for a slightly high tackle K were unable to capitalise, in fact it was R who had the last scoring word when Mike 'Sid' Allen piled over in the corner rounding off a tremendous all round performance against a wily opposition of old heads.  Owen Binns picked up the Player of the match award.

Next Sat R travel to Stourport for a game that will be a battle for third place