Billingham 47, Wirral 20

BILLINGHAM playing with the advantage of the strong wind in the first half physically and metaphorically blew away any chances of a first win for Wirral at Billingham as they conceded five tries in the first 25 minutes.

Billingham took the lead as early as the second minute when the big No 8 Dan Dixon powered over from 5m out the conversion was missed.

The backs then put together several passages of play which split the Wirral defence which enabled them to score four more converted tries through Matthew Kirby, Dan Burns, Luke Wilson and Michael Whinn all converted by captain Peter Evans.

In the meantime, whilst Wirral had put pressure on the Billingham line their only reward was a penalty from James Annetts to leave the score 33-3 in Billingham's favour at half time.

At the interval Wirral lost captain and fly half Craig Harvey with a knee injury.

After strong words from the coach, Wirral started the second half with renewed vigour aided by the wind which had died down now to a breeze but were able to exert pressure of the home line and on 47 minutes were rewarded when a break by James Reeve led to Stuart Gratton crossing under the posts and duly converted by James Annetts.

Two minutes later good inter-passing amongst several Billingham players enabled Luke Wilson to score his second try to extend the lead to 40-10.

In the last quarter of the game, Wirral came more into the game as Billingham took the foot off the pedal and Wirral with some enterprising passing down the backs created space for Dan Harvey to score a couple of tries wide out, none of which was converted.

However it was Billingham who had the last say when captain, Peter Evans somehow worked his way through weak tackling to score under the posts where he converted his own try to give him a personal tally of 17 points and victory to a well organised Billingham side 47-20 following their blitz of scoring in the first quarter of the game.