Kings Norton 12, Upton 8

Kings Norton bagged two vital points from this clash with second-placed Upton to keep their play-off hopes alive.

Veterans Pete May and Guy Walton were drafted in along with the Hefford brothers but it was the visitors who turned on the pressure from the kick-off prompting some excellent work from Kings full-back John Hefford.

The home side were taking the game to Upton and some fine ball-handling skills resulted in centre Martin Hefford drawing the defender before feeding fly-half Ken Whitehouse who crashed through to open the scoring with a try.

Just inside the half-hour, young scrum-half Tim Hodson passed to flanker Mark Martin who entered the line at speed and split the defence to touch down between the posts. Whitehouse kicked the extra points.

Continued pressure by Kings saw a powerful rolling maul and drive over by prop Richard Revil but no try was awarded as the referee could not see if the ball had been grounded.

Upton began the second period strongly in search of a way back into the game.

Just six minutes into the half, the Kings defence was drawn out of position and the Upton number 8 gratefully accepted the space to romp through for a well-taken unconverted try to close the gap to 12-5.

An Upton penalty took the visitors to within four points and they began to take a hold on the game.

With five minutes to go, John Hefford was just short with a terrific drop goal attempt before Upton launched another all-out attack.

However, Kings held on to a deserved victory to go level on points with both Upton and Tenbury.

Kings have a friendly pool fixture this week.