Worcester Wanderers romp to fine success (From Worcester News)

Worcester Wanderers romp to fine success

2:00pm Tuesday 9th October 2012 in Sport

WORCESTER Wanderers Rugby Club produced a stirring second-half performance with seven unanswered tries to record a convincing 63-13 victory over Whitchurch.

But the first period of the Midlands One West encounter was a different affair as Wanderers struggled to break down a determined defence.

Two tries from hooker Simon James, converted by Paul Burton, were pegged back by two excellent long-range Whitchurch penalties.

Wanderers looked the better side throughout the half but a mix of poor decision-making and strong defence blunted their attack.

Whitchurch won a late line-out and retained possession to force a five-metre scrum before several pick-and-drives resulted in a deserved converted try to close the gap to a single point.

Wanderers had just enough time for one more attack which led to a penalty by Burton to leave the half-time score 17-13 to the hosts.

They attacked from the restart and Whitchurch conceded a penalty under their posts which was converted by Burton to stretch their lead.

Wanderers enjoyed a lot of the possession as the pace of the game was upped.

From a scrum, Jake Saddington broke blind and fed the ball to Ed Whitehead, who showing good pace and strength before passing for the supporting Gareth Edwards to score in the corner.

Burton missed the tricky conversion and Whitchurch replied with pressure which was repelled by a turn-over.

But a penalty for crossing handed the initiative back to Whitchurch and they set up a five-metre line-out before Wanderers captain Gareth Owens was sin-binned.

However, the Wanderers defence was disciplined and an attack broke down with Sam Carter scooping up the loose ball.

He sliced through the Whitchurch defence before off-loading to the supporting Tom Drew and, several sets of hands later, Saddington crashed over for a try converted by Burton.

Two more tries followed in six minutes from Carter and Tom Richmond, one converted by Burton.

Whitchurch battled to the finish but three more tries from Saddington, Carter and Russ Marsland, one converted by Burton, capped a fine display from the second-placed side over the Shropshire-based team.

Meanwhile, Hereford continued to impress as well in the same division, thumping Barkers Butts 46-18 to move them up to fourth in the table.