Hinckley arrived at Market Harborough RFC to be met by a gale and driving rain. Generally the conditions didn’t let up for the duration of the County Cup semi final although the rain dissipated for the final quarter. Hinckley put out a strong side with changes from last week-Callum Dacey at full back, Sam Driver on the right wing, Ewan Bartlett and Liam Warren in the front row and Connor Steptoe featuring at blindside flanker. Matt Fearn assumed the captaincy from No8 while George Marsden, Sam Massarella and Steve Harvey made up the bench.

Kicking off against the wind Hinckley soon got into their stride and forced the home side to defend desperately. Superior in the scrummage and with the dynamic rolling maul making an early appearance Hinckley should have scored early tries, but were probably guilty of taking the ball on a little too far in the forwards. When they did move the ball away from the contact Callum Dacey skipped through the home defence scoring wide to the right of the posts. Kicking into the eye of the storm Mark Lord drilled the conversion hard and low to bisect the posts and move the visitors out to a 0-7 lead.
Harborough came back into the game with their tenacious defence and breakdown work and began to gain some territory. However, they weren’t helped with an inability to judge the strength of the wind putting a number of kicks out on the full. Home full back Billy Blair had a long wind assisted penalty chance blown wide and Hinckley went in at the break guarding a narrow 0-7 lead.

Harborough came out all guns blazing in the second half and pressured the visitors into making handling mistakes in midfield and repeatedly falling foul of the officials who deemed many Hinckley defensive alignments to be offside after fast line speed was the order of the day.
From a high kick not dealt with in the wind by Hinckley the home outside centre hacked through the visitors defence to score a fortuitous try wide in the left corner. Blair’s conversion went the way of his first kick, but nevertheless Harborough were back in the game at 5-7 and all to play for.
It wasn’t until the hour mark that normal service was resumed as Harborough tired. A penalty kick for the corner resulted in a catch and drive from the Hinckley pack to which the home side had no answer. Tom Morris got the touchdown although Lord nudged his conversion attempt narrowly wide.
Fresh legs joined the fray as coach Chris Campbell ran the bench and Hinckley pressured the home defence with both ball in hand and probing kicks. Lord snaffled a Blair attempted long pass out of defence, fed Mitch Lamb who in turn put Mitch Culpin and George Marsden behind the home defence. Morris was on hand to take the scoring pass to run around under the posts to make Lord’s conversion a formality. Hinckley ran out the victors by 5-19 and into the County Cup final to be played against either Melton RFC or Oadby Wyggs RFC on the Tigers Welford Road ground in March or April.

The wind and rain made the game difficult for both sides and spectators alike, but Hinckley are back in N3M league action again next week as Longton visit Leicester Road with a 2.15pm kick off.