Alcester 46, Copsewood 0

ALCESTER retained top spot in the Midlands Division Five West (South) with a comprehensive win over their visitors from Coventry.

A blustery King’s Coughton was always going to make difficult the free-flowing rugby Alcester would have preferred against the league’s bottom club, and so it proved in the opening quarter as the visitors, with the conditions at their back, enjoyed the better of the first 15 minutes, as they elected to keep the game tight through their always competitive pack.

The hosts broke the deadlock when flanker Phil Birks, who was his usual forceful presence in the opening stages, made a determined break up field and dragged in several defenders before offloading to skipper and the club’s top scorer Jack Green to race in. Glyn Smith converted the try.

Green turned provider for Alex Chiles to score after Sam Smith had done well at the scrum to retain possession of scrappy ball. Smith again converted.

Sam Smith added a third try following some quick thinking at a tap penalty, which allowed him to exploit a gap that had opened, before his namesake and half-back partner Glyn got his name on the try score-sheet with his side’s fourth and bonus point try.

Alcester continued to dominate territory and ran in four more scores, with man-of-the-match Green scoring the first two tries of the half to complete his hat-trick, before flanker Harry Abell touched down.

Winger Ryan Clark demonstrated his usual speed to outpace the defence and dive over and Smith converted the final score.

Alcester go to Coventry Technical on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the seconds went down 67-39 at Broadstreet thirds in a ten-a-side game, with Stu Whitehead (2), Rikki Bowers (2) and Matt Asby scoring tries.