There was an exciting finish to the league programme on Saturday. Berkswell & Balsall and Old Leamingtonians were in the promotion slots but needed to win their final games to go up. B&B visited Moorefields where they have had a good record in recent years - a win would give them the title but a loss would likely hand it to OLs! They met a Leamington side in a positive mood to turn them over. A penalty by Josh Jones got us in front and two excellent running tries from James Dunne and Garrett Bell added to this and we were ahead by 20-6 at half time. There was no further scoring in the third quarter but with their title chance slipping away B&B began to up the pace of the game and heavy rain started to cause errors. B&B finally got a try through their powerful forwards with 15 minutes to go, but they were still two scores down going int injury time and although they pulled a try back, Leamington kept control and saw out time. This looked to have spiked B&Bs chance of the title and hand it to Old Leamingtonians but they surprisingly lost to Bromsgrove Seconds (who it is rumoured may have fielded a bunch of their first team players) and this handed back the prize to B&B and OLs dropped out of the promotion slots, to be replaced by Kidderminster.
Read John Warner’s full report on the game on the website and watch the video on the following link
https://app.veo.co/matches/20230318-leamington-1sts-v-balsall-berkswell-1sts-180323-4f30b491/
We have finished in fifth place and will now move on to the Papa John Trophy. The draw has now been announced and we are playing Stafford at home on 1 April. Because the final league game is a dead rubber, the RFU have decided that the Stafford game will have priority and the OC game is unlikely to be played. We are in the northern counties part of the competition and the potential opponents include a short hop to Hartlepool and Hull and Warrington, Wetherby and Widnes!
This week the Seconds are playing at home and their opponent is being finalised. The First team have the week off. The Seconds are also playing at home on 1 April to Spartans
Mar 25 - 1st XV free week, 2nd XV – Home TBC
Apr 01 - 1st XV Stafford H, 2nd XV – Spartans H
Apr 08 - Easter no games
Apr 15 - Papa John continues
Sunday saw the U14s travel across the field to play Old Leams and they started the game strongly with a planned move from a 5-man line-out (taken straight from the 1st team playbook) leading to outside centre Eden Bushwell crossing the line. A second try was to follow through the strong running of inside centre Connor Davis, followed by a third from Archie Dunne after pressure defence turned the ball over in our favour. In the second half OLs responded and scored a couple of good tries while Leamington worked through the whole squad of players. Once again, we saw good performances from boys who have joined this season and are only playing their first few games of rugby, but are showing real promise. Leamington ran out winners 21-17 and man of the match award went to Adam Chapman at prop who is returning to form after a nasty ankle injury earlier in the season. Well done to the whole team and Adam!
The 200 Club draw will now be made after the Stafford game on 1 April. If you want to get into the draw, please contact Kit Forrest on 07748 658086 or kit.forrest1951@gmail.com

The Club Annual Dinner will be held on Friday 5 May and the guest speaker is Kelly Brown, who was capped 64 times by Scotland and is currently an Assistant coach with Saracens. Booking details next week

After over a decade of running the bar and co-ordinating events management, John Hodgetts is stepping down to free up more time to spend with his family. As most members will already know the Club owes John a huge debt of gratitude for, amongst many other things, the trading performance of the bar and of course the quality of the ale. John will continue to manage maintenance of the Clubhouse. Fortunately for the Club, Ross and Jackie, members and sponsors who have a strong commitment to the Club have agreed, as volunteers, to take on the bar role previously undertaken by John. Changes of this nature are never easy but given Ross and Jackie's knowledge of the Club it minimises the risks while helping to facilitate a smooth transition".

johnlizlyons@btopenworld.com