Leamington cling on to deny dogged Pershore

Leamington ended a run of three successive defeats with a hard-fought Midlands Two West (South) win over struggling Pershore.

However, after opening up a healthy second-half lead, Leamington were made to sweat by a defiant fightback from the visitors, who were camped on the home line when the referee eventually brought proceedings to an end.

Spa produced a bright start but it was the visitors who opened the scoring with a breakaway try in the corner, which went unconverted.

Spa quickly regrouped and from the restart Alex Carroll and Alex Sharman linked up to provide Nathan Earland with sufficient space for the full-back to race over for a fine score. Patrick Northover added the conversion to edge Spa in front.

The score enabled Spa to gain some momentum and Sharman and Carroll linked up again at pace before Gareth Eastham and Terry Curran led a forward charge which saw Sharman touch down in the corner.

Pershore then wrestled back the initiative with two converted tries in quick succession to open up a 19-12 lead.

Spa put in some energetic play to claw themselves back into the game and Sharman and Curran were just held up with the try-line begging.

However, on the stroke of half- time, Spa won good line-out ball and Northover slipped a short pass to second-row Craig Smith, who crash over for an uncoverted try.

Spa regained the lead after the break with a Sharman try before Nick Maxwell raced in under the posts to further extend their advantage.

Both conversions were added and Spa continued to pile on the pressure, with Northover breaking from a scrum to send debutant fly-half Ben Kingsnorth through under the posts.

Northover’s conversion made it 38-19 to the hosts, but rather than using the boot to pen the visitors back, Spa got caught up in a forward battle and conceded two tries to set nerves jangling.

Sensing an unlikely draw, Pershore produced one final drive to the Leamington line. Second-row Alex Peel thought he had squeezed over for a try only for the referee to decide that he was held up over the line and blow up for full-time.

n Leamington 3rds put in an excellent performance to beat Southam 2nds 37-3.

Tries were scored by Pete Davis (2), Steve Murphy, Kurt Forward, Tony Porter, Tarquin Snell and Dudley Turner. Pete Davis added a conversion.