Hinckley stun high-flying Stourbridge
THERE have been some significant victories in Hinckley’s recent past - beating Peterborough Lions at home to get to the 14/15 play-off, the play-off win over Wirral a year later amongst others, and although this win doesn’t have immediate significance in terms of outcome, it will rank very highly in the club’s history in league rugby.
Hinckley travelled to a side who have for year sat higher in the league pyramid, had spent most of the season so far heading the league and on the day of the opening of their fabulous new pitch, and the outcome was one which no one expected leaving the home side with a level of dis-belief.
Confidence was very high travelling to Stourbridge as you would fully expected with Hinckley now heading National 2 North, however nobody expected such a margin of victory, setting a tremendous marker for the rest of the season.
How the rest of the season plays out is anyone’s guess at this point, but this is one which will be remembered.
The first half of the game was actually relatively uneventful - defence ruled with the majority of the game between the 22s.
However as Hinckley began to run more intelligent lines off Tom Wheatcroft, in particular from the back three they began to make some inroads with the home major threat coming off counter attack.
It did look like the first half would end scoreless. Alex Salt however had other ideas, scor- ing from a catch and drive taken at the back by Gareth Turner who had early saved Hinckley with a excellent turnover early in the game, having been thrown in by Luke Coltman who heroically got through 55 minutes having injured his calf in the warm up.
Joe Glover kicked the conversion for a 7-0 lead.
The early period of the second half was dominated by Stourbridge roared on by significant home support.
In all honesty, Hinckley were lucky to get out with no points conceded, in particular as David Peck was yellow carded on 52 minutes for pulling down a maul and there could have been very few complaints if the referee had gone under the posts and awarded a penalty try. But he didn’t, and minutes later Joe Glover had cleared down field and suddenly Stourbridge were defending their own line.
The clearance from Glover was the turning point. After that Stourbridge didn’t get back in the Hinckley 22, and the visitors entered the Stourbridge 22 four times, and scored four times.
The first came just before Peck returned to the field when Marshall went over from a second maul.
The result was then secured with 10 minutes to play when a significant overlap after Hinckley had got with metres allowed Sam Driver to score.
Glover added both conversions before being replaced, taking his total to 17/18 this season showing his kicking to back to close to its best.
The bonus point came when George Marsden continued his habit of scoring off the bench taking a smart off load from James Martin and then on the final whistle, Callum Dacey who has made a habit of scoring from distance, scored from the closest of ranges from a pick and go.
Dacey then converted both scores, the first time he was