Droitwich 0 Stourbridge 20

Midlands Division Four West (South)

DROITWICH endured a miserable afternoon in wretched conditions at the Memorial Ground on Saturday, as they were mauled by 20 points to nil at the hands of Stourbridge Lions.

The unavailability of Jon Andrews and the late withdrawal of Jim Richardson left the hosts' pack with an unfamiliar line-up, and the driving wind and rain made handling especially difficult.

This meant that Droitwich's most potent weapons - wingers Leon Hopkins and Jamie Faulkener - were mainly redundant all afternoon.

The visitors' strong pack and well organised lineout ruled the day and Droitwich never really seemed to be able to gain any consistent ball, despite the efforts of skipper Nick Godfrey.

Playing with the wind on their backs in the first half, Droitwich never seriously threatened the Stourbridge line and it was the visitors who went into the break with a sixpoint lead courtesy of two penalty goals.

Early in the second half a Droitwich scrum was disrupted near their own line and Stourbridge crossed over to increase there lead. Soon after a further try was added to complete the scoring. This is an afternoon Droitwich will want to firmly put behind them and re-group ahead of next week's cup game at Worksop.