In their second of their pre-season matches, Hinckley again showed that they are capable of competing with higher level opposition. Loughborough Students have been something of a fixture in National 1 over recent years and the Hornets ran them close.

That said, DOR George Chuter could not hide his disappointment at a second straight defeat for his men. ‘I was disappointed in our first half performance,’ commented Chuter. ‘We didn’t start well and I felt that we had gone into the game with the wrong attitude. For the first 30 minutes, we weren’t in the game and were caught out badly up front.’

‘There were some positives though. The backs played well and created opportunities throughout the game although our finishing wasn’t clinical enough. That said, Loughborough played very well and their defence was particularly strong.’

For the second week running, the weather was more suited to cricket than rugby but at least Loughborough’s artificial pitch was a little more forgiving than the bone-hard surface against Cinderford.

Students made their intentions evident from the kick-off kicking for the corner twice in the first five minutes and going over a little too easily with their second attempt.

The conversion was missed but it was not until the 16th minute when a penalty inside the Hinckley half gave the Hornets the chance to lift the Loughborough siege.

Four minutes later, Hinckley had their first opportunity to exert a little pressure when a penalty just inside the Loughborough half was kicked to the corner. The chance was not taken but a second penalty to Hinckley on the Loughborough 5m line gave the Hornets a second chance and prop Steve Harvey went over from the resultant catch and drive. Joe Wilson kicked the conversion to give Hornets a 7-5 lead very much against the run of play.

Loughborough resumed the siege. A catch and drive on 32 minutes was penalised for obstruction to give the Hornets some relief but Loughborough made no mistake with a further catch and drive attempt on the cusp of half-time to give themselves a 10-7 half-time lead.

Students fielded virtually a new team for the second half and Hinckley too were much changed as both sets of coaching staff looked to experiment.

The second half proved a lot closer a contest than the first, but it was Loughborough who scored first to extend their lead when the Loughborough scrum half exploited a massive gap in the Hinckley defence to go over close to the posts. The conversion took the score to 17-7.

There was to be no further scoring but the final quarter proved to be Hornets’ best spell of the match. Sustained pressure saw Hinckley create numerous chances but a combination of good Loughborough defending and poor finishing was to deny Hinckley the second half honours that they probably deserved. After last weeks travails, the front row looked stronger and had much the better of their opposite numbers as the Loughborough pack tired. The backs too worked well although a lack of familiarity with each other was occasionally very apparent.

Hornets return to Leicester Road next Saturday with a match against National 2 South Canterbury when Chuter will be looking to finalise his starting line up for the first League game of the season on September 1 against Tynedale. Kick-off is at 2.30pm.

Nick Robinson