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Superman: Stour's Adam Billig throws himself at Westcombe Park's scrum-half in Saturday's win.

A good crowd saw Stourbridge overcome adversity to beat Westcombe Park 32-12 at home on Saturday and get their promotion push back on track.

Flowing Stour's disappointting defeat away at Blaydon last week they were determined to to make amends but all their pre-match planning was irrelevant when in the first minute, centre Mark Eastwood and fly-half, Sam Robinson, collided with each other.

It was immediately obvious both were seriously injured and it was almost ten minutes before they could be stretchered off and eventually taken to hospital. The incident led to a reshuffle of the Stourbridge line up with Rod Petty moving to number ten, Marcus Cook coming on at full-back and Duncan White coming on at number eight to allow Jim Jenner to move to centre.

Despite their concern for their stricken team-mates and the unsettling nature of the reshuffle Stourbridge dominated possession and territory for most of the first half.

Five minutes after the restart Cook made excellent use of the wind to launch a kick deep into Westcombe Park territory. The visitors made a hash of the line out and Duncan White recovered the loose ball to go over for Stour's first score. Ally Bressington converted and added a penalty to give his side a 10-0 advantage.

Although Stour continued to dominate, the fast Westcombe Park backs always looked a threat, but they were let down by a number of handling errors. With the game approaching first half injury time a home defensive blunder allowed the visitors a simple score following a charged down kick. Despite Westcombe Park gaining the upper hand during the lengthy period of injury time it was Stourbridge who added to the scoreboard, courtesy of a penalty, to bring up a slender 13-7 half time lead.

During the first ten minutes of the second half the signs were looking ominous for the home side with the visitors starting strongly and using the swirling wind to pin Stourbridge in their own 22. Stourbridge put on a good defensive show, forcing several turnovers as they weathered the storm.

The match turned decisively in their favour around the 55-minute mark. Strong carries by Jordan and Tideswell led to Petty feeding an excellent one handed, overhead pass, to Jon Hall, allowing the winger to cut inside to score. Two minutes later a high kick by Petty was caught on the bounce by Adam Billig, he outpaced the chasing defenders to race 50 metres and score under the posts. With boths tries being converted Stourbridge suddenly had a twenty point advantage.

Westcombe Park still looked dangerous and they pulled back a try five minutes later, the referee consulting his touch judge before awarding a score to winger Sam Greenaway. However, it was a measure of the homes side's confidence and control when they elected to kick a 70th minute penalty to touch, leading to a line-out ten metres from the visitors line. The Stourbridge catch and drive ended with Rowlands going over for the bonus point try and a 32-12 victory.

10:19am Thursday 28th February 2008

Try-time: The recalled Jon Hall moves clear of the Westcombe Park defence on his way to the try-line.

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