EVER-CHANGING Kidderminster Carolians kept up their stranglehold of the Midlands Three West North second spot with a 32-15 win at Newport.

Injury-hit KCs were again forced into player switches with Jon Easton, a new Oxford undergraduate, making a last-minute dash up the motorway to play.

But the town team were still able to beat lowly Newport as Matt Poole, Simon Northcott and acting skipper Stuart Such all turned in good displays.

Team manager Phil Knowles said: "We would have settled for this result before the game with the changes we keep having to make.

"We played some good rugby but threw too many chances away and could have been further in front.

"Newport came on strong in the second half but our fitness stood us in good stead."

KCs started well with a converted try inside three minutes after player-coach Ross Baxter powered over the line and Andy Stooksbury added the extra points.

KCs were 14-0 up on six minutes through James Lloyd Jones' good run which was again converted.

Only poor handling prevented more scores but Stooksbury had slotted over two penalties by the 20th minute to extend the lead.

Newport looked dangerous on the break and it took some good defensive tackling to keep them out before they found the gap through winger Buttery with Michael Woodhouse converting.

KCs were 25-7 up by half-time though after a good drive ended with Lloyd Jones scoring again.

The home side put them under a lot of pressure at the beginning of the new half and a Paul Bainbridge penalty pulled them back into the contest.

KCs went off the boil and required hard defensive work to stem Newport's enthusiasm.

It took until the closing minutes for KCs to finally put the game beyond their opponents' reach.

A line-out and good drive took the visitors to the line and forward Northcott touched down with Stooksbury converting.

Newport were lucky not to have a player red carded after an off-the-ball incident was not spotted by the referee and they continued battling to clinch a second try.

There was fixture chaos for the seconds and thirds as Newport failed to raise a team for either game.

Their large contingent of Fijian army players had been flown out on duty to Northern Ireland.

Fixtures, Saturday: KCs 1sts v Stoke, Stourport v 2nds, 3rds v Stourport (all 2.30pm).