Bournville 47 Bromsgrove 33
Bournville made it nine straight wins and maintained their unbeaten home record in a rousing local derby which was a superb advertisement for Regional One Midlands rugby.
There were 12 tries for the biggest crowd of the season at Avery Fields to enjoy with Bromsgrove contributing to the entertainment in a fast and free-flowing contest.
Bourns needed a brilliant individual try from Sam Grimshaw – his second of the match – with the final play of the game to finally seal victory and to deny Bromsgrove a second bonus point to go with the one they took home for scoring five tries – four of them shared by former Bourns players Rhys Williams and Ben Tibbetts.
It was far from being a perfect performance from Bourns but they resumed their winning ways after a four-week break and had to reshuffle their back division with wing Mauro Miller leaving early due to a back spasm and Mikey Ho departing late on after a clash of heads with Williams.
It meant that lock Kieran Henderson had to play the majority of the match in the centre where he slotted in admirably and did not look out of place at all.
Despite ‘loaning’ Henderson to the backs, Bourns were dominant up front and there were flashes of occasional brilliance from the backs interspersed with occasional errors.
Bourns twice went down to 14 men in the first half with Adam Shaw yellow carded for a tip tackle in the second minute and Callum Nicholls for a high tackle towards the end of the half.
Outstanding defence denied Bromsgrove a score while Shaw was absent and when Bourns were back to 15 men they soon capitalised with hooker Ben Rhodes being driven over from a lineout and Jacob Fewtrell landing the first of six conversions.
Henderson got the second after a grubber kick from Grimshaw bounced kindly for Bourns and the lock/centre Galloped outpaced the cover defence. Bourns then turned defence into attack with Ho jinking his way out of trouble before Nathan Decalmer accelerated away down the left wing.
But Bromsgrove began their fightback while Nicholls was in the sin bin with Williams scoring and converting their first try.
Bourns banked the bonus point when Rhodes went over for another close range score before centre Woody Pugh went over for the visitors with the final play of the first period.
When Grimshaw showed excellent anticipation to pick-off a Bromsgrove pace and race in for an interception try early in the second-half, Bourns were again 21 points clear and, apparently, in control.
But Williams and Tibbetts crossed in the space of a five minutes period which meant Bourns still had plenty of work to do.
Jamie Harding’s try, when the replacement hooker splintered from a driving maul, settled Bournville but Tibbetts went over unopposed on the short side of a ruck to put Bromsgrove within a converted try of levelling the scores.
It could have been a jittery last five minutes but Bourns played some composed and controlled rugby when it mattered to pin Bromsgrove in their own half with Grimshaw finding gaps in the defence that did not appear to be there to clinch victory.
*Earlier in the afternoon Bournville Blues beat Harborne 65-19 in an entertaining Counties Two Midlands West (East) match in front of a large crowd in the first game of a local derby double-header at Avery Fields.
Through the viewfinder
Once again for the fortunate souls who don’t have to log in to Facebook, here is a link to the photos from the game.
Sully, Bournville’s always friendly (and free) photographer
