Woodrush 48 Atherstone 14

Woodrush needed to secure a bonus point victory to secure the title over rivals Harbury.

On a lovely sunny day at Icknield Street, the visitors, were at full strength and were in no mood to roll over and make things easy for the green and whites.

The home team, buoyed by the large crowd, started briskly however, and after five minutes an inside pass by Bagby found Warrilow coming off the right wing to register their first score.

An outrageous reverse pass by Titch Thomas shortly after found Smart who burst through the resulting gap to cross and put the home team two scores up. Atherstone roared back and brutally shunted the Rush scrum over their own line to pull the scores back to 12-7.

Just as the game was threatening to turn into a slow turgid encounter, Warrilow demonstrated his great value to the team, taking the ball wide on the right on the opposition 10 metre line and running through four tackles to score a brilliant but unlikely try and on the cusp of half time a fine driving maul saw Taylor cross to secure the bonus point for the home team.

At half time Rush were leading 24-7 and simply needed to hold on for victory to achieve the result they needed.

But conservative rugby is not found often at Icknield Street these days and another Warrilow special, racing 50 metres this time and evading all desperate defensive efforts brought his hat trick and patient phased rugby overstretched the away defence once more and Smart strolled through under the posts to further extend the lead.

Smart joined the hat trick club three minutes later bursting through a hole in the Atherstone line and Josh Tomlinson completed the Woodrush scoring after unselfish play by Moore and Russell five minutes later.

Atherstone had the last say, regathering themselves for a good driving effort in the closing minute but the home team had done the job by then.