Bridgnorth and Dudley Kingswinford will meet in this season’s North Midlands Cup final at Stourbridge’s Stourton Park ground on Friday March 15 (7.30pm).
Bridgnorth will be appearing in the county cup final for the first time although they are no strangers to success on North Midlands Finals Day having won the North Midlands Cup Plate competition in 2017 and 2018.
This year they have gone one better, reaching the final of the main competition, by beating Shropshire rivals Newport 20-13 in the semi-finals and Luctonians 16-13 at Mortimer Park in the quarter-finals.
As a Midlands Premier club Bridgnorth will go into Friday’s final as favourites but DK are pushing hard to join them in the region’s top flight next season.
Since they suffered a narrow home defeat against Midlands One West leaders Bromsgrove on January 5, DK have gone on a seven match unbeaten run and are now firmly in the running for a promotion play-off place.
DK ousted Midlands Premier club Bournville from the North Midlands Cup at the quarter-final stage and then trounced Bromsgrove 51-0 at Finstall Park to reach the final.
DK have won the North Midlands Cup five times, most recently in 2012 when they beat Newport in the final at Heathbrook.
This season’s North Midlands Cup final will be played as a stand-alone event as organisers have tried to avoid clashing with the end-of-season County Championship and causing selection headaches for players and coaches.
The North Midlands Cup Plate competition has been scrapped but Plate competitions for the North Midlands Shield and North Midlands Vase will continue.
The finals of those competitions will be played on the same day in May.