DROITWICH withstood a late comeback by Stourbridge Lions to win 29-17 in a friendly.

The home side fielded a young side with stand-in captain Matt Blackmore by far the oldest player at 29.

Both sides tried to put width on the ball and good early work by James Shewell and Nick Lebotschy put pressure on the visitors.

James Davies gathered a stray line-out to thunder over but Blackmore hit the post with the tricky conversion.

Strong running saw the visitors’ winger race in from half-way to reduce the arrears.

Not to be out-done, Matty Jupp and Phil Horton combined for Blackmore to release Sean Walker under the posts.

Andy Vizor then threw a fine dummy to wrong-foot the defence and fed Ross Coombes who breezed over unopposed. Blackmore again converted.

Early in the second-half, Mark Strutt found room and showed a good turn of pace to score Droitwich’s fourth try.

Blackmore converted and added a penalty to the tally.

At 29-5, Droitwich looked home and dry but Stourbridge then dominated with two tries to reduce the arrears.

Meanwhile, Bromsgrove put in a strong performance to defeat Old Sills 75-5 at Finstall Park.

First-half tries from Duncan Roke, Richard Stockholm, Nigel Burrows, Sam Bastock and Tom Soloman took the game away.

In the second-half, there were further tries from Burrows, Stockholm, Luke James (2), Bastock, Carl Bradley and Richard Arnold. Ben Copson kicked five conversions.