Alcester 2nd XV 14 – 13 Old Laurentians 3rd XV

ALCESTER kept up their Warwickshire 3 title challenge, when they ground out a narrow victory over Old Laurentians on Saturday.

The visitors from Rugby posed a much stronger outfit than their league position suggests.

As so often over the last 20 plus years at Kings Coughton, the match winners came in the form of veteran try scorers Robbie Parker, on his 43rd birthday and fellow teammate Scott Carmichael.

Alcester started down the slope on a dry afternoon but on a pitch that was still very heavy underfoot. The opening half an hour was very even with few clear-cut chances for either side, but the deadlock was broken by Parker who spotted a gap in a scrambling Laurentians defence to dart in under the posts. A good break by guest player Angus Wightman had put his side on the front foot setting up Parker before full back Chris Howell converted the score.

The game then had to move pitches after a nasty looking leg injury to an Old Laurentians player required an ambulance to be called.

When the game resumed the visitors reduced the deficit with a well-taken penalty just before half time and Alcester took a 7-3 lead into the break.

In the second half, the visitors had the better of the opening quarter of an hour and only a speedy intervention from wing Sid Tunstall prevented a try as a Laurentians player showed good footballing skills to kick the ball towards the line.

From the resulting lineout, however, the visitors caught and drove on towards the line and they took the lead when the maul crashed over the line with Old Laurentians still in possession. The conversion was missed to give a visitors a narrow 8-7 lead.

The home side were struggling to make the most of their possession with spilled passes in good positions. The visitors capitalised on their mistakes often defensively kicking the turnover ball back deep into Alcester territory.

The visitors looked to have taken control of the game inside the last ten minutes when from another dominant line out the ball was delivered back to their fly half, who did well to keep control of possession and jink his way to the try line.

Crucially for the result of the game, the difficult conversion was again missed, leaving Alcester still only a converted score away.

In the closing stages of the game an incisive break from Tunstall took play in field and into the Old Laurentians half.

The winger offloaded out of the tackle but just short of Scott Carmichael who instinctively kicked ahead before winning the chase to the loose ball to gather and dive over under the posts.

Howell again converted to put his side back in front with only seconds remaining.

There was no further time for the visitors to hit back and Alcester closed the game out to claim a hard-fought win and keep their title challenge alive, currently sitting three points behind leaders Manor Park 2s.

Next week, Alcester 1st XV are back in action travelling to Burbage to continue their Midlands 3 West (South) campaign whilst the 2nd team welcome Coventrians 2s to Kings Coughton.

Report submitted by Alcester RFC