Leamington 19 Old Coventrians 5: The trusty boot of Robertson helps Leamington to see off Old Coventrians

The heavy pitch and shower of rain during the opening minutes of the game made handling difficult throughout and thus affected the overall quality of rugby on show.

After soaking up early pressure from the visitors, Leamington produced a surging maul and won a seventh-minute penalty which James Robertson converted to take the lead.

The home side then had a lucky break when an attempted clearance kick was charged down by OCs, only for the ball to fall into the grateful hands of Craig Smith. The Leamington lock set off at blistering pace downfield and, as the OCs’ defence closed in, he slipped the perfect pass to Ryan Byrne who raced over for the try. Robertson added the conversion.

The solid Leamington pack then gained a penalty following a rolling maul, allowing the metronomic left boot of Robertson to take them in at the break 13-0 up.

The visitors made a fine start to the second period and reduced the deficit with a well-worked try.

They further increased the pressure on the home defence with a concerted period of play, which was ultimately curtailed by the boot of Robertson.

However, the visitors soon regained the impetus and a quickly taken penalty almost caught Leamington napping.

When Leamington finally found their touch they were unlucky not to score as a clever break by Tom Greevy, who found Byrne in support, was just halted by a timely OCs intervention.

The first 20 minutes of the half certainly belonged to the visitors, but as the home side calmed the waters and began to up the tempo, their forwards gained sufficient momentum to earn a couple of penalties, which Robertson kicked to perfection.

In the dying moments the visitors had one last chance to score, a situation that winger Joe Walton cleaned up with a superb try-saving tackle.