Bredon Star 15 Redditch 7

REDDITCH travelled to league newcomers Bredon Star for a first meeting of the two clubs.

And the visitors had the worst of preparations when fly-half Will Wilson pulled a hamstring in the warm up.

The game was even early on but after 20 minutes, the Bredon centre slipped a tackle by Joe Alekna to go over for a try.

Redditch stuck to their game plan of using their forwards to draw in the defence. Similarly, in defence, Redditch pressurised the Bredon forwards and half backs into mistakes and limited them to just kicking the ball over the defence to full back Aaron Atkinson who countered at every opportunity.

On 25 minutes there was the first of a number of curious refereeing decisions when Redditch's Stuart Medway was sin binned despite Bredon's scrum-half running into his own player.

Spurred on, Redditch continued to force handling errors among the Bredon backs and one of these was pounced on by Ed Gray who raced 60 metres to score under the posts, Jamie Rodden adding the conversion.

The second half began with Redditch in control. Phil Goddard and Chris Oldfield dominated the line-out while captain Stan Hull continued his impressive form with some determined running.

But with 15 minutes left some over enthusiatic rucking by the visiting pack gave away a penalty. Indisciplined back-chat moved the penalty on a further 10 metres and from the resulting line-out Bredon were awarded a penalty for offside which was converted.

The home side sensed victory and threw everything at Redditch. The Kingfishers defence held out until five minutes from time when the Bredon scrum half twisted over the line to score under the posts for a converted try.

Redditch play host to Burntwood on Saturday in the second round of the Powergen Junior Vase (ko 3pm).

Redditch 2nds were beaten 17-0 at home by a strong Worcester University Academy side.

And there was also dissapointment for the Exiles who lost 13-0 at Dudley Kingswinford Vets, the Black Country side taking the initiative with two ealry tries from the powerful pack.

The 2nds play host to Stourbridge Lions on Saturday while the Exiles head to Stourbridge.