DROITWICH Spa RFC First XV moved up to third place in Midlands Three West (South) with a hard-fought victory at Coventry-based Keresley.

Jamie Faulkener scored a hat-trick of tries, to add to his four last week, while Matt Blackmore kicked four penalties and three conversions.

But Spa were made to work hard for their win.

Director of rugby Julian Bailey said: "It was a tough encounter. We were expecting it to be tough. They took the game to us and we had to do an awful lot of defending and credit to our guys the defence held out.

"We kept our noses in front all the time and that was a plus point for us. It's two points at the end of the day. We are keeping on the tails of the leader of the league and you never know what might happen."

And although Faulkener and Blackmore are grabbing the headlines, Bailey is only too aware that it is a team effort.

"All season our forwards have been fantastic," he said. "It's the forwards that do the hard work for them (Faulkener and Blackmore). They get the glory but only because of the hard work the forwards put in."

The forward battle was hard, but when Droitwich spun the ball wide they were always on top.

It was from a good loose ball from Nick Godfrey that saw the ball moved to Faulkener to score. The ever-reliable Blackmore added the conversion.

A good forward drive by debutant Ben Thomas saw the ball quickly recycled for Faulkener to race over for his second.

The second half saw the visitors get involved in a tight forward battle, which they were never going to win. However they did manage to spin the ball on several occasions, which saw Faulkener go over for his hat-trick and Nick Curtis score once. Blackmore also added four penalties and three conversions.