Following a blank weekend last week, Sedgley Tigers returned to winning ways against old rivals Stourbridge at Park Lane on Saturday but needed a second half turnaround to clinch the victory.

The fifth-placed Tigers, who crashed to a shock 23-19 defeat at relegation-threatened Luctonians last time out, took an early lead but were pegged back by a hard-working Stourbridge team.

However, 26 unanswered points in a blistering 13-minute spell in the second half helped the Tigers secure their fourth win in five league games.

"It was another one of those games where we just blitzed them in the last 20 minutes," said coach Geoff Roberts.

"We took the lead, but they came back at us and going into the second half they were on top.

"We seem to be getting into that habit of piling the pressure on towards the end of games and again we just blew them away."

"It was a hard-fought contest, as they always are. They brought plenty of vocal support with them but we silenced them at the end."

The Tigers, who lost Oliver Parkinson to a knee ligament injury during the game, took the lead through Matt Lamprey's try on six minutes. The effort was converted by Matt Riley as the hosts led 7-0.

Stourbridge's Caolan Ryan and Riley traded penalties before the visitors took control of the game midway through the first half.

Tries from Gary Dipple and Christopher Depper with Ryan kicking a conversion saw Stourbridge lead 15-10 at the break.

Ryan extended the visitors' lead with a penalty on 53 minutes before the Tigers ran in 26 points without reply to turn the match on its head.

Tries from Riley, Ben Black, Lamprey and Liam West, and three conversions from Steve Collins, saw the Tigers claw their way back into the match to lead 36-18 with less than a quarter of the game remaining.

Mitchell Thomas' unconverted try temporarily reduced the arrears to 36-23 but Riley's third try of the afternoon, which was again converted by Collins, eased the Tigers to a 43-23 victory.

With the try-scoring duties spread throughout the side, Roberts was pleased with the Park Lane outfits performance but also reserved praise for the individual displays of newcomer Mike Quickenden and back row forward Billy Emerson.

"I thought Quickenden performed very well and Emerson's work rate was fantastic.

"He's not necessarily a big glamorous ball carrier but he was the engine room against Stourbridge.

"He was all over the pitch tackling and turning balls over. He had an excellent game. He was my man of the match."

The Tigers, who are now just three points adrift of third place in National League Two North, travel to eighth-placed Huddersfield on Saturday knowing that only a win will do if they are to keep up the pressure on Caldy and Chester.

"It will be a tough match. Huddersfield always perform well at home and they are going okay in the league at the moment," said Roberts.

"We are really in touching distance of third place now so all we can do is keep winning.

"We've still got to play Caldy so obviously that's the big one and the one we'll definitely need to win at the end of the month."