Birmingham Solihull 45pts Old Albanian 32pts

A bit of a curate’s egg performance, this, as Albanians let slip too many scoring opportunities and allowed the Midlanders too many of their own. The only thing guaranteed in sport is that mistakes will be made; those who recover quickest from them tend to be the ones fortune favours.

OAs were hardly off the coach before sprightly BS hooker Zane Raimondi barrelled over wide out on the right but this wakeup call worked, after a fashion, when flanker Tobias Munday was put through by the home posts. Dan Watt converted and added a penalty on the quarter hour.

Then 21 points rattled on in just ten minutes for the hosts, inside centre Nathan Tildsley twice carving through the defence in midfield and Umraan Jadwat doing the same from the back of the scrum. The eponymous Jack Jolly improved all three. In the middle of this mayhem Watt added a second penalty and he also converted Charlie Watson’s try as the half ended.

26-20 down at the interval seemed better than Albanians might have hoped for a few minutes earlier.

Nobody could fault the visitors’ tight play since scrum and lineout functioned well all afternoon yet Birmingham gained sufficient possession to put the match beyond OA reach in the third quarter. This time Tildsley’s centre partner Dan Kelly scored his own brace whilst Jadwat provided the muscular symmetry with his second try. Jolly converted both Kelly’s efforts.

Disregarding recent International happenings, the result was now beyond probable question, yet Alex Chalcraft and Sam Crean put in sufficient effort to at least bring back a bonus point to Hertfordshire. Watt converted the winger’s try.

Canterbury visit Woollams next week. Their reputation precedes them and it is likely to be a testing time for Ross Hamilton’s men. It should be remembered that Birmingham/Solihull cared little for reputations last Saturday. Kickoff 15.00hrs.

Brian Quinn,

Press & Publicity