Bailey's message despite Spa's narrow second league win

DROITWICH Spa RFC First XV coach Julian Bailey has called on his side to cut out the "silly mistakes", which he believes are costing the team.

Spa secured their second win of the season last Saturday, a narrow 25-21 defeat of Shipston-on-Stour, but they made life difficult for themselves by giving away two soft tries.

Bailey's side now sit third bottom in Midlands Four West (South) although they are only four points from both the summit and the base.

He said: "It was an excellent win and we played really well. The crazy thing is we are playing ever so well but we make silly mistakes and we get punished early on and give tries away.

"We really have got to try and kick the habit of making silly mistakes because we are being seriously punished and we have got to stop that from happening.

"We know we are good enough to compete with the best teams in the league comfortably."

It is a problem Bailey knows the side has to address as, although they won last Saturday, the four-point winning margin could have been more comfortable.

"There was only really one side who were playing decent rugby," Bailey added. "They were a good side but the score really should have been more than it was."

The game began evenly with both teams making a string of errors, and from one such error the visitors intercepted a pass in midfield to run in a try from 40 metres.

Spa soon hit back though with a 20-metre driving maul and from the resulting scrum Droitwich applied pressure to allow young lock Phil Horton to dive over for his first senior try.

More good play by Spa's forwards saw Nick Godfrey take the ball on to find Lee Mortlock in support to score.

Just before half time another over elaboration in the Spa midfield saw Shipston pick up the loose ball and score to lead 14-12 at the break.

With the wind at their backs, the hosts began to dominate in the second half and scored the try of the match. From the fourth phase, the ball went through eight pairs of hands for Godfrey to score.

Shortly after, a clever blind side break by Mortlock put Nick King in for another try.

The game seemed to be over, but a good break out by Shipston, aided by some poor Droitwich tackling, saw the visitors score again to leave a nervous final few minutes for Spa.

But Spa managed to hold on to secure a vital win.

Warley Seconds10 Droitwich Spa Seconds 19.

Droitwich turned in a workman-like performance to overcome their Warley counterparts.

Tries came from Dean Evans (two), Dean Goddard and man of the match Rab Walker.