The 2015/16 season got underway in Burton on Saturday with Hinckley winning 31-10 in a Wooden Spoon challenge match against a side recently relegated to Midlands 1 West.

Following the longest pre-season in recent years 21 players made the trip to Staffordshire with debuts given to 4 players - backs Sam Driver and Callum Dacey who have joined from Leicester Forest over the summer and James Squires and Jack Percival in the forwards who impressed in the Staghounds last year following moves from Loughborough.

Burton had the better of the early exchanges after a Mark Lord clearance kick was charged down however some strong maul defence and scrummaging work meant the Hinckley line stayed in tact in the early exchanges. When the visitors did get the ball in hand however the attacking structures looked dangerous and this led to tries within 4 minutes of each other from Josh Smith and Mark Lord, both converted by Lord.

Burton then got on the board with a score of their own however this was soon followed with two excellent long distances scores from Hinckley. The first came following an excellent break from his own 22 by Driver who fed Mitch Lamb to run in. Then soon after an 25 metre maul made it to the half way line, and was then released to the backs who finished with Mitch Culpin scoring in the right hand corner. One of the tries was converted by Lord. Before the break Burton scored a second unconverted try to leave the score at half time at 26-10.

The second half was played in two twenty minute periods with the first being quite uneventful, with Hinckley using this as the period to make changes and there being numerous reset scrummages. The second twenty however saw Hinckley create numerous opportunities, however a bit disappointedly could only convert one, when some good composure from Percival allowed him to set up Craig Hastie for a try. Hastie did actually ground the ball soon after for a second try, however the referee was un-sighted and so unable to award it.

Post game, head coach Chris Campbell said, 'as a whole, we are very pleased with the performance levels today, we said before the game our aim was to play from all areas of the field and were we rewarded with five really good tries in wide channels. What is also particular exciting is that we had some really impressive performances across the 21, and when you take into account that a number of last years regular first teamers didn't play today, such as Steve Harvey, Ewan Barlett, Ben Marshall, Matt Fearn, Tom Sanderson, Ben Avent, Alex Norris, Dave Weston, Jordan Goddard, Matt Loveday and Sam Greasley, and we were also without a number of new or returning players in George Marsden, Rob Bryant, Tom Hilyer and Ryan Oakes, selection for the next couple of pre-season games is looking very difficult and there is a huge amount still to play for before we begin the league against Scunthorpe'.

Next week Hinckley face strong opposition in Yorkshire, visiting National 2 side Otley in what will be a huge test of where the squad is.

Hinckley: Smith, Driver, Culpin, Harris, Lamb, Lord, Glover, Macqueen, Masseralla, Warren, Deaville, Salt (c), Percival, Morris, Marsden. Reps: Coltman, Squires, Weddle, Hastie, Mocelutu, Dacey