Upton's first serious home game of the season ended with another disappointing defeat, however it was a game they could have won.

Things went against Upton in the warm up as they lost number 8 Oli Banwell in the warm up with a back injury.

The home side started brightly as the pack scrummaged strongly against their opponents. However as was evident throughout the game they could not string together enough phases of quality rugby to create clear cut scoring opportunities for themselves. Despite this though they pressurised Southam at the scrum and break down and were awarded to early penalties which Dan Keyte converted to make the score 6-0.

Southam slowly got into the game as Upton relaxed but also considered silly penalties which were exaggerated by needles back chat towards the referee.

Just before half time Southam were awarded a scrum in a central position within Upton's 22 and a missed tackle in midfield allowed their burly centre to storm through under the posts. The ended the half with the score at 6-7.

The second half was not pretty from either side in the warm conditions as Upton struggled to develop any continuity and Southam kicked all their possession into Upton's half. Controversy then occurred as the Southam prop was sin binned but the away team did not have a replacement prop, which Upton believe they should have within the rules, and the ref ordered uncontested scrums. From one such scrum they launched an up and under into the Upton 22, which was chased well forcing Upton into throwing a loose pass that Southam picked up to dive over. 6-12.

The referee's poor handling of the game meant that tempers started to fray and both sides ended the game with 14 players after a minor scuffle but surprisingly after a late brawl the ref decided to not send anymore players to the bin.

Upton now move onto this Saturday with an away trip to Woodrush and hopefully they can start to put together more of the flowing rugby they showed against Ledbury.

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