UPTON were on Powergen Junior Cup duty on Saturday with a second round visit to Tenbury.

TENBURY 17pts UPTON 23pts

These visits to Tenbury are getting to be quite a regular thing following on from Upton's first round victory visit last year. Despite travelling in rain, the elements changed and the match was played in dry conditions on a good pitch.

Upton kicked off and immediately put Tenbury under pressure close to their try line but they resisted and cleared the ball downfield to safety. For the next 10 minutes the teams tested each other but gradually Upton's pack started to take the upper hand.

Rob Heeley kicked the ball downfield over the advancing Tenbury backs causing them to turn and chase back to their 22 in order to defend. Skipper Ollie Jones, playing in his usual way and right winger Chris O'Neil were up fast and 'tied up' the defenders so that they could not release the ball.

Upton's pack arrived and quickly dispossessed Tenbury and after swift passes out to centre Alex Pimlow, he burst through his covering tacklers and ran 30 metres to score under the posts and Heeley converted for 0-7.

Upton increased their lead on 25 minutes. After Tenbury missed a penalty, Upton went back on the attack and Heeley took a successful snap at a drop goal when other options were shut down.

Tenbury tried to get some points to reward their efforts and put their backs to good effect with several attacks down their right hand side. Most were repelled but on 35 minutes Upton succumbed to a penalty which was converted to leave the half-time score at 3-10.

Tenbury came storming out for the second half and forced Upton back towards their line where they conceded another penalty which was converted to reduce the points difference to 6-10.

From the restart Upton's forwards started used their dominance in the set scrums, line-outs and driving mauls to good advantage. Upton soon redressed the points difference when Heeley kicked a second drop goal for 6-13.

Tenbury kept sniping away through their backs and forced Upton into another penalty which went over via the top of the upright.

Upton's forwards then wrapped the game up with two powerful well-controlled rolling mauls, both from 20 metres following catch and drives from line-outs. Matt Bookham claimed one try and Paul Pickering the other. Heeley was unsuccessful with the conversions from wide out for 9-23.

Play became scrappy and in the last five minutes Tenbury scored a penalty and then with the last move of the match scored an unconverted try under the posts for 17-23.

So Upton move on to the next cup round on November 6, but before that there are two league matches, firstly away to Handsworth tomorrow (Saturday) and then at home to table-topping Redditch.