Lichfield suffered another tough day at the office as they went down 47-19 at Burton.
Once again the Myrtle Greens were uncompetitive in the opening half and left themselves too much to do once they found a way into the game.
Trying to overturn a 32-0 deficit at the break was always going to be a tough ask, although there was no lack of effort and fight as they notched up a deserved three tries.
Lichfield’s tactics in the second period were interesting, with a number of penalties coming their way – but rather than kick to touch and hope for the best, they instead tapped and were able to string together numerous multi-phase periods of play.
Things didn’t start well for the visitors as they dropped the first piece of ball they acquired. From the resulting set piece, Burton scrum half Chaz Bunting – always a livewire and very much the talisman for the side – was able to exploit some flimsy blindside defence from 40 metres with two minutes gone.
Ten minutes later Will Simpson made it 8-0 with a straight penalty, despite the strong breeze which didn’t work in favour of either side when they had use of it.
Simpson also added a further first period penalty, as well as three conversions.
Three more tries were added before the break from the home side.
Another dropped pass very early in the second period allowed Bunting to race home, cleverly avoiding two attempted tackles on the way.
The fightback started for Lichfield with the back row working manfully to provide some go forward for the side. Slowly, the visitors saw more and more ball and just before the hour mark they smartly worked Joe Bourne over in the left corner after multiple phases of possession.
Unfortunately, the Myrtle Greens lost concentration momentarily and replacement scrum half Jack Ingram danced over from close range. They didn’t give up on the cause though, with Freddie Wilson picking a perfect line off a ruck to enthuse the team again.
This was followed by another well taken try by Ben Ashmore, who once again showed his potential to the side. Kai Lucas-Dumolo added two conversions.
As Lichfield chased a fourth try, they took risks which led to them being at the wrong end of the pitch. Burton completed the scoring with a try in the left corner by Will Derry.
The result means the city side find themselves ten points from safety with only Nuneaton below them in the table at the halfway mark of the campaign.
They will look to kickstart their season when they face league leaders Dudley Kingswinford on Saturday (3rd December).
Other results from the weekend saw the seconds win 38-36 at Wolverhampton, while the Colts ran out 11-7 victors at Silhillians.
