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North Midlands through to National Under-20 Championship semis
by Paul Bolton
North Midlands booked their place in the national semi-finals of the National Under-20 Championship by beating Staffordshire 15-10 in a tight Midlands final at Burntwood on Sunday April 6th.
Despite heavy overnight snow the pitch recovered remarkably quickly to allow the game to go ahead. Though the surface was tacky in places it was a strong crossfield wind that caused most problems for both teams.
Both sides were missing key players because of injury with Ashley Patterson and Greg Massey ruled out of the Staffordshire side and Will Betts and Charley Thomas missing for North Midlands.
But North Midlands were boosted by the unexpected availability of full-back Cameron Pimlow and Jake Abbott, the Stourbridge flanker, and both contributed significantly to the win.
Abbott helped to set up Selly Oak centre Matt Durber for North Midlands' opening try with a strong run and he scored the second himself, just two minutes into the second half, after Moseley winger Sam Yarwood, a prolific try-scorer this season, had split the home defence with a superb break up the right.
Pimlow converted Abbott's try and he also landed an early penalty which was soon cancelled out by a similar effort from Staffordshire fly-half Luke Massey (Lichfield).
Staffordshire exerted plenty of pressure in the second half and were left to rue kicking a series of penalties to touch instead of at goal and reducing the deficit.
They struggled to locate their line-out jumpers in the strong wind and North Midlands were able to withstand the barrage and hold out for victory.
Staffordshire did score a consolation try with the final play of the game when Massey hacked on and replacement scrum-half Jonny Watson-Jones (Stafford) followed up to score. Massey added the conversion but the score came too late to prevent North Midlands winning the group and securing a trip to Yorkshire, the defending national champions, on April 20.
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