North Midlands ended their County Championship Bill Beaumont Cup Second Division campaign in style by trouncing Somerset 48-19 in an entertaining tussle at Stourbridge’s Stourton Park today.
A heavy defeat in their opening match against Surrey effectively put paid to North Midlands’ hopes of winning promotion back to the top tier of the competition and reaching next week’s final.
But they showed the benefits of playing together with gradual improvement over their three matches in the southern section of the competition.
Having battled to victory over Devon at Brixham last week, North Midlands played with fluency and confidence and rattled in seven tries in perfect handling conditions.
They were given an early lead by Luctonians wing Will Sparrow who slotted a third minute penalty and built on that a try from Bromsgrove number eight Phil Horton who picked up and drove over from the base of a five metres scrum.
Three tries in an 11 minutes purple patch just before half-time accelerated North Midlands towards their win.
Stourbridge wing Tom Jarvis went over from long range after he was put clear by Luctonians fly-half Tom Jones and a powerful run from Birmingham & Solihull centre created space for Bromsgrove flanker Sam Montieri to clatter through some weak tackling.
The bonus point try camen just before half time when Leach powered over unopposed and Sparrow landed his third conversion.
Somerset resisted for the first 10 minutes of the second half when North Midlands captain Chris Goddard drove over from a five metres line out and Sparrow added the conversion from a difficult angle.
Somerset’s defence was again found wanting when Luctonians full-back Joe Doyle ghosted through and Sparrow tagged on the extras.
Jarvis made it 48-0 when he latched on to a perfect crossfield kick from Jones after Bridgnorth centre Jimmy Gore had made ground through the middle before North Midlands lost a little shape when a raft of substitutions were made in the final quarter.
That gave Somerset the opportunity to rally with full-back Joe Hall crossing after a length of the pitch kick-and-chase and right wing Sylvan Edwards scoring twice in five minutes.