UPTON travelled 80 miles to Leicester to play against Old Newtonians in the first round of the Powergen Junior Vase on Saturday and progressed with a draw on the away side rule.

OLD NEWTONIANS 14 pts, UPTON-UPON-SEVERN 14pts

Six years ago Upton 'thrashed' O'Newts 12-10, again in the cup, mainly due to the mazy running of full back Jason Bell. After his studies Bell has returned North and Upton's new crop of exciting runners are now fighting for the limelight.

Like last week skipper Ollie Jones elected to play into the wind first and after the long journey and with five changes to last week's team, Upton took a long time to settle. They duly took a jolt after nine minutes when O'Newts' winger Gardiner intercepted and sprinted 60 metres to score under the posts, which Hare easily converted.

This score did not faze Upton, they just showed some maturity and stuck to the task of getting back on the attack. This they did with their forwards digging in and working the rucks and mauls with efficiency to work the ball up field.

Forty-year-old flanker Barry Lancett returned this week and was a constant thorn in the flesh along with Ollie Jones as they harried the opposition into mistakes.

It was appropriate that it was Lancett who emerged with the ball to chalk up Upton's first try after 30 minutes when the forwards had made good yardage with rolling mauls. Rob Heeley kicked a good conversion into the wind from wide out for 7-7.

The second half arrived and as luck would have it the wind dropped considerably and changed direction to go across field. But Upton kept moving the ball out to stretch the opposition and gradually O'Newts older scrummagers started to wilt and they had to bring on new legs.

Upton resisted the changes as Newtonians upped the pressure but Upton's right winger Richard Mills was on hand to put in the telling tackles and Heeley cleared for touch. With only minutes of normal time left Heeley attempted to seal the match with a speculative drop kick which went narrowly wide.

So 10 minutes each way of extra time was the order and straight away from the kick off Newtonians caught Upton napping as they recycled the ball and right wing Brown raced away to score under the posts. Hare easily converted for Newtonians to retake the lead 14-7.

Upton kept their heads and within three minutes had levelled as once again Lancett was the last one up with the ball following a catch and drive from a line out five metres out.

However, the referee was not happy with the way that Newts had tried to prevent the try and duly awarded a penalty try, so making Heeley's conversion task easier to level the match at 14-all.

Having been in a similar position some years ago when drawing in an away cup match against Kidderminster, Upton knew they just had to sit tight and they would go through to the next round as the regulations award the away team victory at this stage of the competition when tries and conversions are even.

Newtonians went for the win but Upton's defence held out and indeed Upton came close to further scores through skipper Jones and attempted drop kicks by Heeley and Alex Pimlow.

So Upton are through to the next cup round on October 16.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the 1st XV return to North Midlands League duty with a home match against promoted Stourbridge Lions whilst the 2nd XV have an away Merit Table match also against Stourbridge.