Pershore 25pts, Old Silhillians 11

PERSHORE ended the first half of the season on a high note after Saturday's magnificent display.

The first 30 minutes saw the hosts produce their best form of the season and, even without several injured players, they were too good for Silhillians.

Once again the Piddle Parkers impressed up front as a solid and dominant scrummage was backed up by the soaring Levin Widmer, who once again dominated the line-out, and the vastly improving, technically good Alex Peel.

It is doubtful that there is a better back row in this league than Richardson, Bassett and Watson and, with this sort of platform, scrum-half Hirons dominates and gives his backs plenty of ball and with the excellent Robin Haines orchestrating things at fly-half, Pershore are a very good team.

Bulldozed

Pershore camped in the opposition 22 from the first whistle stretching the visiting defence all over the park. When they were penalised for killing the ball, a tap penalty released Karl Evans, five yards out and it would have taken some tackle to stop him as he bulldozed through to touch down.

Pershore were quickly awarded the first of five penalty successes for Haines as they increased their lead and, such was their dominance that they could have been out of sight after 20 minutes.

However, it wasn't to be and Sils reduced the lead with two penalties.

On the stroke of half-time, a smart back row move down the blindside released Steve Holmes who handed off a defender and, when confronted with the full-back, ran through him and touched down.

The second half was tremendous. Sils threw everything at Pershore but resilient defence thwarted every attack and, when Sils infringed, Haines kicked the penalties.

Sils scored a deserved try on the stroke of full time to keep the scoreline respectable on an afternoon when there was only going to be one winner.

Midlands Three West (South)

P W D L F A Pts

Barkers Butts 12 10 1 1 353 132 21

Pershore 11 10 0 1 222 121 20

Stratford 12 8 1 3 268 191 17

Old Leams 12 7 0 5 193 157 14

Old Yards 12 6 1 5 279 230 13

Hereford 11 6 1 4 202 193 13

Silhillians 12 6 0 6 227 207 12

Bedworth* 12 5 0 7 210 229 8

Earlsdon 12 3 0 9 155 234 6

Ledbury 11 3 0 8 152 290 6

Shipston 12 2 0 10 96 230 4

Droitwich* 11 2 0 9 124 267 2

Midlands Four West (South)

P W D L F A Pts

Solihull 10 9 0 1 313 70 18

Keresley 10 7 1 2 197 146 15

Worcester Wdrs 10 7 0 3 293 108 14

Edwardians 10 6 1 3 163 159 13

Evesham* 10 5 2 3 192 145 10

Old Hales* 10 5 0 5 172 181 8

Marconi 10 3 0 7 167 231 6

Berks & Bal 10 2 0 8 47 189 4

Manor Park 10 2 0 8 90 233 4

Southam 10 2 0 8 86 258 4

*Points deducted.