NORTH Midlands Under 19s will take a commanding lead into the second leg of their Sable’s Head Trophy tie against Warwickshire at Broad-street near Coventry tonight (7.30).

North Midlands, who successfully retained the trophy last season, eased to a 42-0 win in the first leg at Kings Norton two weeks ago.

The winners of the trophy, a mounted antelope’s head, will be decided by aggregate scores over the two legs.

The trophy, which was presented to the Midlands Colts by a touring Cape Town and Stellenbosch Universities side, used to be the prize for the Midlands Colts Championship. But North Midlands and Warwickshire are the only two of the six Midland counties still fielding representative sides at the Under 19 age group and so the trophy has become a keenly-contested prize for the two local rivals.

The North Midlands’ side for the Warwickshire game in-cludes Bromsgrove and Camp Hill number eight James Freeman who was capped by England Under 18s last season.

North Midlands Under 19s: Alex Warner (Moseley); Luke Davies (Worcester), Stefan Shillingford (Dudley Kingswinford), John Ball (Moseley), Jack Pomeroy (Droitwich); Nathan Walmsley (Moseley), Jordan Brooks (Dudley Kingswinford); Mike Hill (Worcester), Sam Fitch (Worcester), Alex Watton (Birmingham & Solihull), Joe Francis (Dudley Kingswinford), Dan West (Moseley), Joe Callaghan Adnams (Camp Hill), James Freeman (Bromsgrove School). Reps: Liam Dunne (Birmingham & Solihull), Adam Bilborough (Luctonians), Dan Micklewright (Moseley), Stefan Thorpe (Dudley Kingswinford), Sam Lewis (Worcester), Gareth Bown (Dudley Kingswinford).