NORTH Midlands made a nightmare start to their County Championship campaign when they were crushed by a superior Surrey side 60-17 in Division One South of the Bill Beaumont Cup at Stourton Park, writes Nick Pullen.

They fell behind to a gift try after just 12 seconds and never looked like repairing the damage from that point.

Man of the match Ryan Jeffery, an outside centre from Dorking, grabbed possession straight from the kick-off and forced his way through a string of feeble tackles to score by the posts.

Jeffery went onto snap up no less than six tries as Surrey cut through North Midlands defence like a knife through hot butter at times.

Surrey were already 24-0 ahead after 16 minutes and went onto secure a total of 10 tries, five of which were converted by fly half Matt Noble who also plays for Dorking.

In fact Dorking supplied no less than 12 players in Surrey's starting line-up, with London Irish Wild Geese also being well represented.

Stourbridge had three players in North Midlands line-up comprising of Tom Jarvis on the right wing, Jacob Nash at scrum half and Drew Harper playing at No.8 while former English Counties prop Mark George came on as a replacement in the first half.

The bulk of North Midlands was made up of players from Luctonians and Bromsgrove, but in truth they were simply outclassed by Surrey.

Bromsgrove right wing Tom Hunt pulled a try back for North Midlands who trailed 31-5 by half time.

Two minutes after the interval Drew Harper drove over for a second North Midlands try which allowed Bournville fly half Alex Warner to kick the extras.

But from that point, the game simply turned into a procession as Surrey continued to sparkle before North Midlands managed a late consolation try two minutes from time thanks to Bromsgrove replacement Gino Belmonte.

North Midlands now face a tough trip to Brixham next Saturday to take on Devon before they return to Stourton Park on May 23rd to entertain Somerset.