Tenbury 12 pts Cleobury Mortimer 17 pts

CLEOBURY Mortimer completed their pre-season warm up matches with a friendly against neighbours Tenbury, at Palmer's Meadow.

New skipper Hylton Smith was pleased with the work-out at Tenbury as both sides used the opportunity to play their full squads.

Play was very tight for the first quarter with both defences performing well.

Tenbury broke the deadlock after 18 minutes when their number eight picked up in mid-field and made a half-break before transferring to fly-half Andy Yeomans.

He raced clear to touch down near the posts, adding the conversion himself.

Cleobury hit back almost immediately when their fly-half Colin Smith broke through to cross mid-way out, but the usually reliable Smith failed to convert his own try.

The visitors continued to press and took the lead just before the break when lock Pete Howman completed a strong drive by his pack to register a push-over try, Smith adding the extra points. Both teams made changes during the interval and the re-shuffled teams again looked well-matched with exchanges very even with most of the play taking place in mid-field.

Tenbury got back on terms when home skipper Stephen Price made a break and moved it wide to right winger Pete Phillips, who ran strongly before slipping the ball to supporting flanker Mark Carvell who crossed wide out for an unconverted try to tie up the scores.

With a draw looking the likely outcome a mix-up by the home defence allowed Cleobury scrum-half Luke Price to pounce on a lose ball to score a try.