UPTON-upon-Severn remain adrift at the bottom of Midlands Two West (South) after a 37-15 defeat at Kidderminster Carolians.

But, despite being nine points behind Leamington after failing to win a match since the first day of the season, they put up a fight at their high-flying Worcestershire rivals.

The hosts managed to clear snow off the pitch to enable one of the few games in the region to be played.

Upton’s philosophy is now to play with a smile on their faces and blood youngsters with a view to the future.

The next two weeks see home games against Earlsdon and Dunlop where they hope to pick up an elusive victory.

In wet, cold conditions in Kidderminster, Upton started well by taking the ball on through the forwards.

KCs' game-plan was to run the ball wide on every occasion and they did it well, opening the scoring with a Chris Pinner penalty.

Upton drove forward with Adam Jones, Rob Heeley and Guy Field to the fore.

But, as they tried to include the backs, the ball was dropped on the KCs’ 22 and the home side hacked the ball downfield, winning the resultant chase to take a 10-0 advantage.

Upton gave a debut to fullback Tom Bryant who excelled with fine tactical kicking.

But, within a minute of each other, captain Matt Cock and pack leader Rob Heeley were sent to the sin-bin as they tried to defend their line.

Down to 13 men, the six-man pack held a five-metre scrum but the KCs number eight picked up and drove over with no back row to stop him.

However, one minute before half-time, Upton won a lineout 10 metres from the tryline and it seemed all 13 players joined the maul to push over Liam Moloney which made the half-time score 20-5.

Cock and Heeley rejoined the fray in the second period after Chris O’Neil reduced the arrears with a penalty.

Open-side Max Macfarlane then charged down an attempted clearance from Pinner and the young flanker touched down for a try which O’Neil converted for 20-15.

However, despite Upton’s resurgence, the more powerful KCs side used the conditions to their favour and started to pull away from Upton.

They kicked another penalty before scoring two tries through their forwards in the last 10 minutes.