Syston came to Leicester Road to contest a quarter final tie of the Leicestershire Senior County Cup in the first fixture of the new year. Conditions weren’t the best with a more than saturated pitch, a dark afternoon and drizzle in the air.
Hinckley had a similar look to the side which finished 2015, still without seven first choice players.
Rob Bryant and Matt Walker stepped into the starting line up while Steve Harvey, Tom Sanderson, Rich Harris, Phil McQueen and the returning from injury Sam Greasley made up the extended bench.

Hinckley kicked off down the slope, but unusually for Leicester Road, into the wind and were soon into their stride. After only five minutes Callum Dacey had scored wide on the right as Syston were stretched first left then right with some fine collective Hinckley play, despite the conditions. Mark Lord couldn’t add the conversion. Syston used the wind to their advantage with James Morgan and Ian Smith kicking for position keeping the home side pegged back. Morgan missed a penalty and Hinckley pressed to run the ball out of defence with Sam Driver and Mitch Culpin leading the way. Tom Hilyer extended the home sides lead with a well taken try with Lord adding the extras, while Morgan missed another penalty for Syston.

A score of 12-0 to Hinckley at half time just about reflected the home sides superiority.

For once Hinckley started the second half of a game with a bang and scored the best try of the day through prop Liam Warren. The ball went through at least eight pairs of hands after breaking out of defence before Warren motored in under the posts and Lord added the conversion.
Syston tried to break out of defence themselves, but Lord intercepted a lofted pass to run in unopposed for try number four which he converted for a 26-0 lead. Culpin added the next score after some good work by Mitch Lamb cutting through the Syston defence and touching down under the posts. Lord again added the conversion and the game was won on the hour with Hinckley 33-0 in the ascendancy.
Coach Chris Campbell ran the complete bench, pulling off some key members of the squad with the long league season in mind. Although Matt Fearn extended the home sides advantage with Rich Harris landing the conversion Syston scored three consolation tries late in the game to narrow the final score to 40 points to 19. In mitigation Hinckley had five front row players on the pitch for the last ten minutes.

Hinckley return to league action next week with a visit to Birmingham/Solihull ko 2.15pm determined to keep their unbeaten league record intact and hopefully get some of the key injured players back in action. It was good to see a second half cameo appearance from Sam Greasley for the first time since the Old Hales game back in early November.