A SECOND away win and what a beauty. The completeness and solid command with which Wharfedale dispatched top of the table Stourbridge 22-10 on a rain-drenched afternoon at Stourton Park in a hard-edged, high-class encounter was a sweet and satisfying performance to savour.

For the third successive time, Wharfedale, as at Blaydon and against Nuneaton, were two tries and 14 points to the good in as many minutes. And as on those occasions, the early foothold on the scoreboard was courtesy of a devastatingly incisive individual break to the posts by the continuingly impressive Kiwi Daniel Snee.

The timing of the fly-half's passing was also freeing the dangerous running of Chris Malherbe into inviting open space and pressure near the line set up an impressive measured driving maul which saw David Lister propelled over for a second try. Full back Adam Oldfield, substituting for the morning withdrawal of Jonathan Davies, converted both and added a close range offside penalty in confident manner.

The Dalesmen were a morale-boosting 17-0 up in only 20 minutes, but nowhere near a comfort zone.

Stourbridge did collect their opening score at the close of the half with a Ben Harvey penalty, but even at 17-3 down they were a team that felt time and forward control was still on their side.

And after the break, forsaking somewhat the narrow, fruitless central blind alleys of their first half play with a mixture of chip kicking over the defence to the touch line and increasing dominance the scrum, their optimism was boosted with a 48th minute reply when fly-half Craig Jones wriggled clear on the touchline side from the back of a maul to speed round to the posts for Harvey to convert.

Only a single score down and bags of attrition time still left to play.

But for all their territorial command and bludgeoning possession in 20 minutes of total attack, they reaped no further reward and then when Wharfedale at last secured an attacking foothold near the line thanks to another fine Malherbe break, Rob Baldwin just on for the unlucky Ali Allen, stretchered off with a leg break, plunged over in the corner for instant reward.

Though the visitors continued in their remorseless attack, their prowess in the loose and at the scrum counted for less and less. The power of the offensive Wharfedale tackling forced more and more errors and they were continually punished by a succession of majestic relieving touch kicks of superb length and unerring accuracy from the boot of Snee.

And with their resultant lineout under continuous pressure from excellent spoiling work by Lister and Capstick, they were out of the match and for all their genuine self-belief they knew it.

Wharfedale comfortably played out the final 10 minutes of the match with only the minor blemish of an odd flaky moment in attack presumably in the unwise search for a fourth-try bonus point.