Spartans battle past Kenilworth

Kenilworth’s troubled season continued with an embarrassing Warwickshire Cup defeat under the lights at Aston Old Eds against a team who play their rugby two levels below in Midlands Two.

Spartans were fired up from the start against a Kenilworth team missing several regulars and opened the scoring in the 20th minute.

Spartans opted to take a scrum after being awarded a penalty close to the Kenilworth line. A series of reset scrums followed before Spartans scored, with the referee awarding the try after consulting with his touch judge. The try was converted.

Kenilworth remained on the back foot and lost number eight Bobby Thompson to a yellow card, with Spartans driving over from the resultant scrum for an unconverted try.

Ks closed the half on the attack, with only a deliberate knock-on, not punished, preventing a certain try.

Kenilworth gave themselves hope seven minutes into the second half with centre Chris Murphy crossing, converted byAdam Canning.

However, Spartans slowly turned the screw, using the power of their forwards to dominate the lineouts and the scrums. A drive straight from a lineout made it 17-7 before they wrapped up the win with another forward-led try following a five-metre scrum.

To compound Kenilworth’s misery, they lost second-row Ian Phillips to the bin late in the game.