After a somewhat shaky start to this campaign Tamworth had enjoyed a much richer vein of form over the last few weeks seeing them take twelve from a possible fifteen points. And they were looking to extend their unbeaten run to four games on Saturday.
They welcomed Stourbridge Lions to Wiggington Park who themselves have had a mixed bag of results starting the day just one place behind Tamworth in the table. So the scene was set for a close encounter.
Tamworth got off to a flying start catching Stourbridge cold some wonderful handling creating the chance for Callum Render to open the scoring after just 3 minutes. The returning Danny Norton slotted the extras to give them a nerve settling seven point lead.
Ten minutes later Stourbridge reduced the deficit to two as the fullback took advantage of a couple of missed tackles to score (7-5)
This was the wakeup call Tamworth needed as they took control of the rest of the half with tries from Leighton Norton, Jimmy Carroll and Danny Norton who also converted two of them for Tamworth to go into the break with a very healthy looking (26-5) advantage.
The lead was extended further early in the second period Carroll getting his second of the day after some strong work in the forwards creating the opportunity. (31-5)
Stourbridge kept going and were rewarded with a try from a catch and drive in the corner to which they added the extras (31-12)
There was a welcome return to the Tamworth side Skipper Macauley Green coming off the bench having missed the last two games through injury.
It didn’t take long for him to have an impact on the game combining with the impressive Carroll who unselfishly put him in to finish a magnificent flowing passage of play to effectively put the game beyond Stourbridge’s reach. (38-12)
There would be time for one more try from Tamworth centre Ben Archer showing great strength bouncing a last ditch tackle to dot down Norton successful from the tee (45-12)
Stourbridge to their credit never gave up and would get the final score of the day the fullback ghosting through the Tamworth defence seemingly untouched their kick was successful making the final score Tamworth 45 Stourbridge Lions 19
After the game coach Nigel Hall commented
How can I not be pleased with how we have played over the last few weeks. Three bonus point wins from three but the great thing is we can still get much better we were a bit sloppy at times defensively today and we have highlighted a few areas where we need to tighten up. But on the whole we have climbed up to fifth in the table and we are definitely moving in the right direction we don’t have a game next week so we have plenty of time in training to work on a few things before we go to Stafford on November 20th.