Kidderminster Carolians

The Worcestershire-Shropshire derby proved to be a game of contrasting styles with Shrewsbury playing a tight 10-man game, while KCs tried to move the ball at every opportunity.

Shrewsbury opened the scoring when their winger barged over after a series of penalties allowed them to attack close to KCs' line.

But the hosts responded positively and hit back with two tries by Andy Webber and James Whitehouse following fine moves, with Andy Stooksbury converting one of them.

Shrewsbury added a second unconverted try of their own to trail 12-0 at the break and at that stage the result could have gone either way.

KCs were soon behind in the second half when a defensive mistake allowed Shrewsbury a five-metre scrum which resulted in a try.

Coach Stooksbury appeared to be unfairly sin-binned after some arguable refereeing decisions and soon after a Shrewsbury penalty took the visitors' lead to six points at 18-12.

A Chris Pinner gave KCs fresh hope but they ran out of time to get back into the game and suffered another morale-sapping defeat.

Despite the result, Stooksbury is refusing to be too downbeat ahead of Saturday's home clash with Telford at 2.15pm.

"We're desperately disappointed because we could have won but we just made a few too many mistakes and panicked when we should have kept our cool," he said.

"But we did play some excellent rugby and our inabilty to hold big sides in the forwards again led to our downfall."

l KCs seconds exacted a measure of revenge by sinking Shrewsbury 43-0.

H Pearce and R Slater grabbed doubles while P Warman, B Mannion and M Bullivant also scored tries with T Oakes kicking four conversions.

l The thirds took their unbeaten run to 10 matches by running out 26-22 winners in a close fought contest with Dixonian seconds.

Grant Stewart was once again outstanding and captain Spencer Crockett continues to drive his troops on as they go in search of the Merit Table title.