Hornets suffer a derby day mauling by Lions
THE scene was set for a tremendous St George’s day send-off to the season for the Leicester Road faithful – a bright, if blustery, spring day, arch-rivals Leicester Lions the opposition, and a big St George’s day crowd anticipating vengeance for a narrow defeat earlier in the season.
In the end, the crowd dispersed deflated after Hornets suffered a heavy defeat against a much more experienced, and far more streetwise, Lions side who took full advantage of some lenient refereeing of the breakdown area to put Hornets on the back-foot for much of the afternoon. The final score was perhaps a little flattering for the Lions but there was no doubt that on the day, Lions were full value for the win.
Director of Rugby Scott Hamilton’s comments after the game recognised that Hornets were second best on the day.
“There was no doubt it was a tough day at the office. We were rather blown away in the first 15 minutes or so, but I thought that we did well to get back into the game and at 15-5 after half an hour, we were going well.
“It was a killer blow though to then concede three tries in the last 10 minutes of the half to go in 24-18 down and I don’t think we ever really recovered from that. Without that, it may have been a very different story.
“I couldn’t fault the effort, but the Lions back-row in particular was a classy unit, and they obviously came with the intention of targeting Ben Pointon and did so very effectively, although not always legally in my opinion. Their quality of ball was better, and they used it better, plus we again missed too many one-on-one tackles.
“It was disappointing to lose for a second time to Lions but the experience that some of the young lads gained can only be good for thecClub going forward.
“We have our last game next week at Barnes and it would be nice to end what has been a long hard season with a win, but we are already looking to next season and preparations are well underway.”
The early exchanges saw Lions dominant with Hinckley hardly getting a hand on the ball for the first 15 minutes. Hornets defended stoutly but there was an air of inevitability about the Lions first try. With Hinckley down to fourteen men after Mitch Lamb had been carded for repeated offending by Hornets, Lions secured a line-out on the Hinckley 5m line and when the ball was fed right Hornets simply ran out of defenders to give Lions full-back Will
Helliwell a simple run in for the try.
That did seem to goad the Hornets, however, and five minutes later prop Sam Greening bulldozed his way over the line from 15m out to register Hinckley’s first score.
On a difficult day for kickers, Joe Wilson could not make the conversion but did add a penalty three minutes later to give Hinckley the lead and when Mitch Lamb added a second try in the corner just three minutes later, Hornets were in the ascendancy with half-time approaching. Wilson’s conversion took it to 15-5.
But Adam Groocock picked up a second yellow card for Hinckley and Lions took advantage to run in three tries in the last ten minutes of the half.
The first was a simple drive over the line from a penalty line-out allowing hooker Oli Taylor to dot down. Ben Young converted.
The second came after Lions pressure eventually opened a gap in the line allowing Helliwell to run through for his second try.
And the third came as a result of further pressure from Lions which, again opened up the Hornets’ line for centre Zach Bean to sprint through from 30m out. Wilson had added a second penalty for Hinckley but Young’s conversion gave Lions a 24-18 lead at the break.
Hornets needed to score first to get back into the game but were immediately under pressure when Joe Barnes dropped the restart kick and Lions sensed another score. Hornets initially held out until a charged down Joe Glover kick out of defence was retrieved by Wilson who did manage to get his kick away but only to Lions wing Jake Sterland who ran the thirty-five meters back to the line to score out wide.
Hinckley did respond with a well worked try for Euan Kelly from a Hinckley scrum on the Lions 5m line, but it was to prove their last score of the game.
Sterland grabbed his second try of the afternoon towards the end of the third quarter with Young slotting the conversion to put Lions two scores ahead.
Then another Lions chargedown on 70 minutes in the Hinckley 22m was retrieved by Lions scrum half James Stubbs, albeit with the strong suspicion of a knock-on, and dotted down for the try. Young again converted to take the score to 23-43 to put the game out of reach for the Hornets.
With the game lost, in the closing minutes, Hinckley were searching for a fourth try for the bonus point, but as so often happens in such situations, a loose pass on halfway was picked off by Stubbs who just made it to the line. Young’s conversion brought up the half century for Lions.