TENBURY RFC rounded off their season in style with a five-try victory over Birmingham Civil Service.

And while head coach Andy Black concedes that the Palmers Meadow side will be relegated from Midlands Four West (South), he said the 36-13 defeat of Birmingham Civil Service showed that the players had the ability to compete at that level.

Fly-half Zack Thompson was Tenbury’s star turn, helping himself to a hat-trick and a personal tally of 26 points from the game – he also kicked four conversions and a penalty.

But Black also praised the efforts of his forwards who worked hard on tiring out the big opposition pack.

“Zack has had the game of his season,” the Tenbury chief admitted. “He’s scored a hat-trick and while the final try was a bit cheeky, his others were good individual efforts where he has chipped over the opponents before scoring under the posts.

“I don’t know if fly-half is his natural position as he has also played on the wing but he showed he had the skillset. Maybe he was inspired after listening to Phil Bennett at the dinner the previous week.

“it was also a great effort from the forwards who worked hard to tire their opponents out. They are a big side but not very mobile but after crashing through us a few times early in the game, we gradually wore them down and by the end of the first half the shove that they had at the start had gone.

“Ben James was excellent in the back row as were Adam Westwood and Craig Parker – they made the hard yards through the middle.”

After overcoming the initial Civil Service bombardment, Tenbury proved too good for their visitors as they eased to their bonus point victory with Joey Partridge and Callum Spires adding tries to Thompson’s treble.

And with the points in the bag, Black was able to make changes going into the final stages.

“For the last 20 minutes we were able to bring on some of the new players,” he explained. “We gave some game time to three of four of the lads who have been along to training but hadn’t had a chance to play which is important for the future development of the club.

“It was a really nice way to close out the season and means we have something to build on. We know we are going to be relegated but it just showed that we can turn it on when we have to.

“We’ve learnt some valuable lessons this season and one of those is the need to bring more players into the club. We have only used 24 or 25 players this season which is ridiculous. We need extra numbers and we need to develop our second team bringing the two sides closer together.”