SHROPSHIRE will take a psychological advantage into next Wednesday's RLF Hart Gilmore North Midlands Rugby Championship final after a 33-17 victory over Worcestershire & Herefordshire at Luctonians last night.

Both counties had already qualified for the final, which will be played at Stourbridge, but they used the final group match to play some exhilarating rugby.

Shropshire were encouraged to adopt a no-kicking policy by their coach Steward Jardine and although it occasionally got them into difficulties in defence, it also produced five tries.

Four came in the first-half with winger Derek Sandell (Ludlow) rounding off a thrilling length of the pitch move.

Skipper Will Crawforth then went over from close range and Mark Williams added his second conversion before the Combined Counties rallied with two unconverted tries in three minutes from Hereford's Keiron Griffiths and Ben Hughes of Malvern.

But Shropshire hit back thr-ough tries from Steve Dolphin and Peter Bucknall.

Shropshire were restricted to just one more try from Adam Smallwood, while the Counties had the final say as Malvern fly-half Paul Jenkins went over under the posts and Anton Pilli of Luctonians converted.