Sat 24 Jan 2026
Alcester travelled the short distance up the Salt Way to complete a comprehensive win in a sometimes feisty local derby, with all of their points coming in a dominant second half display, where no 8, Lewis Wright scored a hat trick of tries.
With skipper Ed Gough and regular centre Josh O’Connor missing, Alcester were forced into changes in midfield, with Oscar Holland stepping into fly half in place of Gough, and Lewis Walker coming into the centre to replace O’Connor.
The first half was scoreless, but the pumped up home side came close to opening the scoring inside the first quarter of an hour, but they were held up over the line.
The competitive nature of the game led to a number of “handbags” incidents and following one, Alcester’s Nigel Burrows and a Droitwich player were yellow carded.
In the final few minutes of the half, Oscar Holland was forced off with an injury, which prompted another reshuffle and Max Biltcliffe stepping into fly half, in a real throwback to earlier in his career, where latterly he has moved into the front row in the pack.
Droitwich finished the half as they had started, in coming close to opening the scoring, but at the break it remained 0-0.
The visitors started the half with much more intensity to their play and they were in front in the opening minutes of the half through Wright’s first try, which Jamie Harland converted.
Straight from the restart, Alcester scored again through Will Silk, which Harland again converted.
The home side were reduced to fourteen men when they received a yellow card for a dangerous tackle on Max Biltcliffe and within a minute the visitors had scored again, through skipper for the day Ieuan Hopkin and another conversion from Harland.
Harland came close to adding a fourth try, whilst the home side were still a man down, before man of the match Biltcliffe did add Alcester’s bonus point try.
Droitwich came close to scoring, when their numbers were restored, before another bout of handbags saw one from each team again sent to the sin bin, with Will Silk being singled out for Alcester.
Whilst both sides were still a man down, Droitwich lost another player, this time to a red card, for an incident at a ruck. Lewis Wright took advantage with his second try before he rounded the scoring off before the end of the game with his hat trick try, which Harland converted.
Alcester are on the road again on 31st when they travel to Kidderminster Carolians, for the rearranged fixture, of the original that was frozen off earlier in the month. Kick off is 2.15pm.
