Stoke Old Boys 18, Kings Norton 23

KINGS Norton got back to winning ways after a hard fought victory over Stoke.

It took a gutsy second half performance to stave off a determined fight back by Stoke who had found themselves trailing 20-5 at half-time.

The Hopwood-based side were not at the races for the first quarter of this robust contest.

This was despite driving forward and taking the lead in the fifth minute when hooker Will Greenwood powered over for a try.

But the home side immediately countered this with a similar score.

Kings had failed to gather the ball from the restart and the highly motivated Stoke forwards took possession and forced their way through the visitor’s defence to level the scores.

But Kings slowly gathered themselves together fighting hard to contain Stoke’s overzealous play and eventually won a penalty which was narrowly missed.

Mark Waudby restored Norton’s lead when he finished off a sequence of driving mauls.

As the away side kept the pressure on the referee finally lost patience with the home pack sending two players to the sin bin within a three minute spell.

Kings still found it difficult to break through despite Stoke’s reduced numbers until finally winger Jack Manners raced over for a great try which Shane Rees converted.

As the clock ticked down the home side continued to spoil and conceded another penalty which Rees converted.

Stoke gave Kings a fright in the second period. Following an early Manners mazy run which resulted in another yellow card for a home player , they began to work their way forward in determined fashion and after 20 minutes effort scored a converted try, following this with a good penalty to close the points gap to five points.

Rees gave Kings slight breathing space when he converted another penalty but Stoke scored a kick of their own.

The away side weathered a frantic final 10 minute spell of pressure to run out with a deserved but closer than comfort victory.

Theyare at home on Saturday when they take on lowly placed Warwickians at home (3pm ko).