Lichfield showed signs of improvement but were unable to come away from their clash against Dudley Kingswinford with a victory.
Ahead of the game, director of rugby Dan Hemingway had asked the city players to rediscover their mojo – and for the opening 40 minutes they did just that.
After 15 minutes, Lichfield led 14-0 after playing some bright, purposeful rugby, patiently playing through phases with pace. Dudley felt the pressure and made mistakes to help the home side’s momentum.
Lichfield opened the scoring on ten minutes. Jack Hurst, part of an emerging back row of substance, carried well and Freddie Wilson grabbed his third try in three games from close range.
Five minutes later, a sweeping move took the home side into the red zone. Support was there in numbers with clever offloads and Ollie Green scored by the posts, with Charlie Milner kicking his second conversion.
The first time Dudley had some decent possession they scored. They knew how to work the Lichfield defence across the field, back and forth, and Will Hancox stole through a hole in midfield.
The tide was starting to turn and Sam Vaughan, a trusty full back with vision, scored a second try and added a second conversion.
Lichfield were still competing well and Charlie Milner finished the half with a close range penalty for the half time lead.
In the early part of the second half, Dudley slowly started to take a hold on proceedings territorially and the crucial next score came from an interception by fly half Freddie Morgan who was able to run in from half way.
The squeeze was on from the visitors and this led to a period of play in the Lichfield 22 and eventually the cover was sucked in and sub Jake Thompson scored easily in the corner.
By now, the hosts had adopted the same tactics as the week before, trying to play a loose style of play from all situations. It worked at times, but not all.
This led to the next try from centre Joe Heatley, which came from a dropped ball when under pressure.
Lichfield weren’t throwing the towel in though and worked a clear overlap on the left for Kai Lucas-Dumolo to score.
Dudley did have the final say with captain Ben Rhodes scoring against a tired defence before Vaughan kept his 100% kicking record off the tee.
Lichfield travel to Kenilworth this Saturday (10th December) for a 2.15pm kick-off.
Meanwhile, the 2nds couldn’t achieve the double against the Dudley second string, losing 38-21. The 3rds went to Handsworth and won comfortably 14-44.
