Redditch RFC

Last Saturday Redditch headed over to Warley taking on a team who are now in a division higher than them.

With a strong squad and plenty of players Redditch were confident of a good start.

Not to be - from a ruck close to the line the red and wites skipped around the blind side (possibly via the touch line) to take a shock early lead.

And that was not the end of it. Redditch had no answer to the big strong Warley pack and were crushed in the first scrum and beaten in the lineout.

Our strong runners were often isolated as Warley got second man to the tackle and turned us over.

With plenty of possession Warley battered away at the visitor's line and were soon rewarded with two more tries.

Redditch's only score in the first half went to Ash Mooney who dashed through for a brilliant solo try which he duly converted, taking the half time score to 17-7.

Coach Luke Kerins delivered some well chosen reminders to the Kingfisher's players in the hope that it might cause them to lift their game in the second half.

Some heavy showers in the first half had caused a lot of dropped ball and the showere continued into the sceond half.

Redditch had made some positional changes and brought on fresh faces and, as the game wore on, Warley could be seen to be visibly tiring and not quite getting first to the breakdown.

Redditch's scrum seemed to have been shored up and we managed to take a few lineout balls against the throw.

With a bit more possession Will Heath, Ash, Arron and TK made valuable ground but still the final pass was not quite there.

Eventually the Warley defence cracked for Redditch to run in two quick tries as time was running out.

With the score locked at 17 each, Redditch finally believed that they could get something from the match and eventually crossed for the winning score after some prolonged pressure on the Warley line.

Final Score 17-24.

Redditch secured the win and have many things identified to work on before Saturday's home fixture against King's Norton with a kick off at 2:30pm.

From that perspective it was a successful pre-season trial and hopefully we will see a more controlled performance against local rivals King's Norton.

Meanwhile on Sunday the Junior section had a taster session on Sunday Morning resulting in a bumper attendance and many young people of Redditch getting a fantastic introduction to rugby.