Upton continued their post Christmas winning streak with a hard fought victory over Woodrush. Still buoyed by last week's result against Dunlop the home side came into the game in jovial mood and the pre-match talk centred around concentrating on this game. Matches between these sides are always close and fiercely competed and this was no exception.

Upton controlled the early parts of the match but came up against a fast defensive line. Chris O'Neil missed an early penalty and as Upton continued to pressure the visitors it was decided to run a penalty move rather than take the 3 points but Woodrush were proving a hard nut to crack.

As the visitors started to find their feet they too pressurized Upton and despite missing a penalty of their own their fly half Steve Smart made amends with 3 points. The visitors were soon 10-0 up when a well worked move from the scrum allowed the full back to race through to touch down. The conversion made the half time score 0-10.

A shell shocked Upton knew that patience was the way back into this game but also realised that they had to score first. And this they did. From a line out inside the visitors 22 Upton span the ball wide. Inside centre Alex Pimlow ran the ball back in towards the forwards and as ever found space and just as it looked like he would score down the blind side he was tackled but popped up to second Row Matt Jeffreys. Chris O'Neil converted for 7-10.

Upton continued to pile pressure on Woodrush, but struggled to retain pressure at the break down especially as they were missing Luke Mathie and Adam Heath from the back row, and that Oli Jones having to go off early in the second half due to illness. However they did score again from a flowing move. Again from a line out, where Matt Bookham was having a field day on home and away ball, the ball was sped wide. Chris O'Neil broke through two tackles from full back before putting in the speedy Dan Aldersley to race in from 10 metres. The conversion was missed making the score 12-10. The game then turned against Upton as first Woodrush took the lead from a Smart penalty and then Matt Jeffreys was shown a straight red card for a brief scuffle. This was a surprising decision as the game had meant that the ref had not had to speak to anyone about foul play and maybe a warning or yellow card would have sufficed.

Upton knew they now had to really step up to the plate. The scrum down to seven men was superb and Rob Heeley even managed to take one against the head with the help of his front row partners Russell Price and Sean Lancett. As the ref failed to officiate the breakdown correctly Upton had to raise the physicality of their game and eventually the ref had no alternative but to award penalties to Upton for not moving away from the tackle area. With 5 minutes left Chris O'Neil slotted over a well struck penalty from 35 metres to make it 15-13 and Upton controlled the rest of the game to achieve an extremely hard fought victory.

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