Bishop's Castle 14pts Tamworth nil

ALTHOUGH not in their best form, Castle did enough to beat off the challenge of lowly Tamworth, and maintained their challenge for the Midlands 4 West North title with two more points.

The visitors surprised the home team early on by taking the attack to them, but were rocked back when a break by centre John Smith finished with a try for Jason Burton to set the home team on their way. Mark Willcock added the conversion to put the home team seven points up at half-time.

Castle were much livelier at the start of the second half and doubled their lead when Smith scored a second try and Willcock landed the conversion. There was no further scoring as the home team held on to complete an unconvincing win. Coach Gavin Randall said the squad will need to be more focussed when they face a much stiffer task away to Veseyans on Saturday.

The second team fixture between the pair ended in a 15-0 win to Tamworth.