DROITWICH Men made a losing return to action in the West Midlands Division One when they were beaten 3-1 by Whitchurch.

Spa continued with their policy of using youngsters in their starting lineup and were the brighter side in the opening stages.

In the opening minutes of the game, forward Simon Baines was the first to get the ball in the goal but the score was disallowed because of a stick infringement.

Whitchurch responded well and opened the scoring from a short corner.

But Spa continued to attack with pace, with wing-back Brett Gwillam using the space he was afforded to feed Andrew Rollason, who used his trickery to gain space and run at the back line, but he was not able to fashion a clear cut opportunity.

Down the left, there was a similar story, with Alexei Payne providing the cover for Andy Griffiths to cut in and attack the circle to gain a penalty corner.

From the resultant corner, Spa equalised with a shot from Craig Timmis, which found the bottom right-hand corner of Whitchurch’s net.

Droitwich remained in a resilient mood, with their tireless midfield keeping out Whitchurch, who had a short corner seven minutes before half time. The Spa backline repelled this effort to leave the half-time score 1-1.

In the second half, Droitwich continued to play the more cohesive hockey, with Joe Neal and Mark Bartle repeatedly playing the ball wide to the overlapping runners.

Simon Baines won a short corner in the circle after playing the ball onto a foot but Droitwich could not make the away side pay.

Whitchurch became frustrated at Spa’s continued good play, but two quick strikes fired them ahead.

Payne found more room down the left in the dying stages of the game and he won a free hit on the edge of the circle and, from the quickly taken free hit, he won his side a penalty corner as the away side had a player sin-binned.

As the clock wound down, a shot from a penalty corner sailed just wide of the near post.

Spa could not make their pressure count and the away side became more ill-disciplined as their captain and right back were handed needless green cards

Craig Timmis said: “This was a good peformance for our first league game back since Christmas and youngsters showed how much of an asset they can be with their pace and skill, which caused Whitchurch problems.”

Meanwhile, the veterans side got the better of Pershore with a 4-2 victory.