UPTON Rugby Club picked up their second bonus-point win of the season with a 32-26 success over old rivals Manor Park in Midlands Three West (South) but made hard work of it.

Having been soundly beaten at Ledbury two weeks ago coach Ben Hughes was looking for a response and with James Gammond, Max Macfarlane and Dan Aldersey back in the team Upton had a much stronger look about them.

They started brightly, taking the ball and moving it at pace and were soon ahead when after a number of phases openside Matt Dunwell burst through from 20 metres to score.

Rob Heeley converted to make it 7-0.

But the same old story started to develop as Upton let the visitors back into the game by conceding penalties and making silly mistakes.

Manor Park used their hard-running forwards to create go-forward ball and scored two tries with one converted to take the lead at 12-7.

Upton started to get more of a foothold in the game and eventually retook the lead after a brace of tries from Will Barrell.

The young back rower got himself into two identical positions, taking the ball about 10 metres out and showed wiry strength to bundle his way over twice in as many minutes.

Will Dovey took over the kicking and bagged one of the two conversions for a 19-12 interval lead.

Upton started the second half brightly and had soon secured their bonus point when Heeley took a quick tap penalty and fed skipper Macfarlane for the number eight to power over.

Heeley converted to take the score to 26-12.

But Upton fell back into bad habits and had first Macfarlane and then right wing Jake Lee sin-binned for indiscretions.

This gave Park the edge and with them on the front foot scored two tries to secure their bonus point.

With only one converted this made the scores level.

With 10 minutes to go Upton had to somehow galvanise their troops but they did and were rewarded with two penalties when still down to 13 men which Heeley kicked to grab the lead at 32-26.

With Macfarlane and Lee back in the fray for the final five minutes Upton held out for a valuable win.

They went up to seventh in the table ahead of Saturday's visit to third-from-bottom Old Coventrians in the league.