His young side might be suffering from end-of-season jitters but Bromsgrove director of rugby Dean Ball is confident the Boars have it in them to retain their Midlands One status.

The Finstall Park outfit lost at Kettering on Saturday and with the race hotting up to avoid the third and final relegation place, Ball knows there is still work to be done to ensure their stay at level five lasts longer than a single season.

"We would be silly to think otherwise," he said after watching his team go down 40-15 to the league's secondplaced team.

"Another two wins would certainly keep us up and we have got the ability to go undefeated for the rest of the season.

"It would be a bit of a travesty if we were to go down having lost four or five close games in the last couple of minutes."

With five games remaining, Bromsgrove have a four-point cushion between them and third-bottom Derby and with games against struggling Broadstreet and Whitchurch to go, Ball expects to be playing in Midlands One in September.

Coventry-based side Broadstreet, who have just four matches left, are currently second-bottom and have very little room for manoeuvre after losing 36 - 5 at Luctonians.

Walsall had their match at Longton cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch and already-promoted Leicester Lions dropped their first points of the campaign with a 24-24 draw at Dunstablians, who battled back to level the

scores eight minutes into stoppage time.

Further down the pyramid, Solihull sealed the Midlands Four West (South) title after two late tries gave them a 17- 3 victory over Old Halesonians.

They led just 5-3 after hooker Jeff Large had put them ahead, but eased away when No 8 Dan Gallagher scored under the posts and Rob Salisbury crashed over soon after.

Team manager Rich Gamlin is delighted to have secured promotion before next weekend, when Solihull travel to North Bristol in the semi-finals of the Powergen Vase. "We spoke about wanting to put the league out of sight before the cup match," said Gamlin.

"To do that and clear our heads so that we can concentrate on next week is a great achievement."

If Solihull beat the Gloucester Premier leaders, they will earn the right to play at Twickenham for the first time in the club's history.

Camp Hill were handed a potentially decisive advantage in Midlands Three West (North) when rivals Newport were held to a 16-16 draw at Kidderminster. n Notts, Lincs & Derbyshire will have to find a new date for their RFU National Under- 20 Championship match against Oxford University.

The match, which was originally due to be played at Nottingham's Beeston ground, was moved to Ilkeston in midweek because of a waterlogged pitch.

But Ilkeston's pitch was also declared unplayable after recent snow and the match has now been postponed to a date to be agreed.

Notts, Lincs & Derbyshire's next match in the competition is a potential Midlands League B title decider against Warwickshire at Broadstreet next Sunday (2.30pm).