Upton-upon-Severn 36, Southam 7.

UPTON-upon-Severn made it 15 consecutive wins in Midlands Three West (South) to continue on their charge to the title.

With leaders Upton’s Chris O’Neil now out for the rest of the season for shoulder reconstruction, Alex Pimlow moved back to outside-centre to partner Andrew Burns.

Their forwards laid the platform for the backs with some superb straight running and off-loading most notably from Russell Price, Luke Boulton and Adam Heath.

Southam matched their opponents in the close physical encounters but had no answer to their off-loading game and, after a few sniffs at the line, the latter started to rack up the tries.

Mike Dodge fielded a clearance kick and shipped the ball to the opposite wing quickly.

John Hall took the ball tight to the line before handing off the Southam winger and popping back inside for Pimlow to score. Dan Keyte took over the kicking duties from O’Neil and slotted the conversion.

Upton’s second try came from a scrum 10 metres out. The home pack steadied the scrum and Matthew Cock fed Keyte’s who bamboozled the visitors’ defence believing he was going to pass to Burns, only for the flying Dan Aldersey to scorch through to score. Keyte converted to make it 14-0.

The third try was again orchestrated by the forwards but this time through some good off-loading before the ruck was set up.

Once again, Cock spun to the ball Keyte who this time fizzed a line-breaking pass to Dodge who had come off his wing to slice through the gap to score. Keyte converted again to make it 21-0.

Upton continued to dominate the game and scored their fourth try when, from a line-out, the pack set up a driving maul 15 metres out.

Led by replacement number eight Jamie Anderson, on for the injured Luke Boulton, the home side drove Southam over the line.

But it was hooker Liam Moloney who came up from the melee of bodies with the ball in his hands to take the plaudits. This made the half-time score 26-0.

Upton brought on Martin Muleko for Aldersey and Rob Heeley for Adam Jones at half-time, but this initially did nothing to stop the constant wave of attacks from Upton. The hosts were playing at such a pace that the only thing stopping them scoring were the mistakes they created themselves from trying to do so much.

However, tries number five and six soon followed.

Muleko finished off some slick handling and then Burns powered his way through the tackles to add to his collection for the season.

With the result firmly secured Upton did take their foot off the gas and after some sloppy work at the restart and the resultant penalty, Southam kicked to the corner.

Another penalty was taken by Southam as a five-metre scrum and as it wheeled, the ball popped up to the visitor’s flanker who burrowed his way over the line.

The rest of the game fizzled out as Upton tried to score more tries but couldn’t execute any moves.

The only entertainment for the crowd was the sin-binning of the Southam fly-half and Upton’s second row Guy Field as the referee became tired of the infringements at the breakdown.

Upton-upon-Severn will host Ashbourne in the RFU Senior Vase Midlands area semi-final on February 26 (2.15pm).