RELIEVED captain Ed Gough was happy to see Tenbury get over the line against Chaddesley – even if they did make life difficult for themselves.

The Palmer’s Meadow outfit leapfrogged their Midlands Five West (North) rivals up to third with a 13-5 triumph on Saturday.

Having led 3-0 at half-time courtesy of a Claude Celton penalty, Greg Powell crossed the line to give Tenbury the platform to push for a bonus point after the interval.

Chaddesley hit back with a try of their own and although the hosts became more dominant as the match progressed, they had to make do with only one more score from Celton.

“It was a good win and a very important one,” said Gough, who missed out with an ankle injury.

“Other than the first 20 minutes we didn’t play that well. It was pretty tight but while they dominated the scrum, they also didn’t look like scoring.

“We were the better team in every other area and squandered several try-scoring opportunities. We must have passed up three in the first half and another three in the second.

“Somehow, we managed to get that last pass wrong having done everything else right. I can’t remember the team having so many knock-ons.

“They were proper chances. One was a four-on-one in our favour, there were loads of openings but it just wasn’t happening for us.

“It kept them in the game but we sorted out our scrum at half-time, offloaded our bench early and it made the difference. Fair play to Chaddesley, the scrum was an area of real strength for them but we should be happy that it was us marching them back towards the end.

“From that point of view it was good, it was just a shame we kept them in it for so long through our own mistakes but the win was the main thing.

“We stopped them getting anything from it which was important. We are happy.”