WORCESTERSHIRE and Herefordshire stayed on course to retain the RLF North Midlands Championship when they beat Shropshire 35-29 in the semi-finals at Droitwich.

Shropshire would have progressed to the final had they lost by a margin of just one point but they could not get the important final score despite late pressure.

The combined counties will now meet Greater Birmingham in the final at Stourbridge on Tuesday (7.30pm).

A hat-trick of tries from Upton-upon-Severn winger Alex Pimlow helped to seal the win although Newport full-back Watisoni Leqeti replied with three superb tries for Shropshire.

The turning point came with the final play of the first-half when Shropshire had a try disallowed. Newport flanker Vic van Staden thought that he had got the touchdown but referee Paul Richards ruled that Worcestershire and Herefordshire fly-half Andy McLellan had prevented van Staden from grounding the ball with a smothering tackle.

Leqeti crossed for the opening try after just four minutes after excellent work by centres Tomasi Tanumi (Newport) and Mike Woodhouse (Harper Adams University).

Fly-half James Curgenven, of Newport, added the conversion but the counties responded immediately with full-back Ross Coombes, of Droitwich, ghosting thr-ough some poor defence for an unconverted score.

Shropshire scored again when Tanumi cut through on 13 minutes but Coombes then made a break that gave Pimlow the chance to show his paces for his first try.

A penalty for McLellan (Dudley Kingswinford) gave the holders the lead for the first time but Tanumi scored a superb second on the half-hour to cancel it out.

Stourbridge centre Lachlan Porteous went over from long range for a try that McLellan improved and added a second before the break to give W&H a 25-17 lead at half-time.

But Shropshire bounced back when Leqeti scored his second but Pimlow raced over twice in seven minutes to complete his hat-trick.

Shropshire needed to score 12 points in the last 10 minutes to nudge Greater Birmingham out of the final but they managed only seven when Leqeti powered through a static defence for his third try and Tanumi added the conversion.