February has arrived so does that mean that summer is only just around the corner? Well from the hot sunny day it was hard to comprehend that the flood barriers had only been removed from the riverside on Friday and Upton's pitches had been under water just over a week ago and indeed this was the first Saturday of 2008 that had seen a game on the playing fields as second placed Upton played hosts to third placed Dudley Wasps.

The early exchanges saw Dudley take the game to Upton with some neat handling moves but despite missing two relatively easy penalty kicks inside the first 15 mins the Wasps could not get onto the score sheet. Upton were starting to sort themselves as there were several positional changes due to injuries and non availability and after 30 minutes the ball was worked along the back line and when thee lingering hooker Rob Heeley received the ball he hastily 'showed' the ball and calmly 'strolled' to the line to score the opening try. This try was very reminiscent of Heeley's game saving try at Keresley two weeks ago

Upton were now dominating the line outs and were making massive 'yardage' with a number of rolling mauls but there were no more scores before half time as Dudley proved to be stubborn defenders.

After a bit of 'tweaking' and a couple of positional changes Upton restarted the second half the same they had finished the first and put Dudley under pressure and skipper Chris O'Neil soon increased Upton's lead with a penalty kick from 30 metres

Dudley realised that to get any chance of promotion back on target for a second year that they had to attack and this they duly did but Upton were up to the task and it was Upton who scored next. Fullback O'Neil gathered a speculative kick ahead by Dudley on Upton's 22, ran through a couple of tackles before kicking the ball upfield towards the Dudley 22. The ball was picked up by Dudley's fullback but he was not expecting the speedy arrival of Upton's Will Carr and Alex Pimlow who easily dispossessed the fullback and Pimlow ran on to score

Pimlow increased Upton's lead five minutes later again with another display of some high speed footwork as he sped in for a try from 40 metres leaving a trail of would be tacklers in a mesmerised state behind him and O'Neil converted

With 15 minutes left Dudley mounted an attack down the right and got near to Upton's line but the defence held firm but after several recycles and changes of direction, Dudley's fullback finally ran through a stretched defence to score Dudley's first try

Upton are familiar with late comebacks of their own and were determined not to get caught out so went all out to make the game safe. A drive and a kick upfield took the ball to within 10 metres of the Dudley line and when the defender panicked and dallied with the clearance kick Upton pounced to retrieve the ball and moved it to the back of the ruck. The experienced head of Nigel A came to the fore as he kept a cool head to call a set move to draw the cover and Lorcan Lynch was in support take the ball and cover the final five metres to touch down

The game was now won but there was still time for Dudley to get a converted final try

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