It felt as if it was the start of a new era for the Hinckley 1st XV on Saturday, beginning the 24-25 fixture programme away at Burton who performed well in the league below last year. The team was captained for the first time by Oli Bee, who is now the permanent vice captain behind Rory Vowles who was rested for the afternoon, whilst there were first appearances in a Hinckley shirt for no fewer than 6 players with Ben Kennerson also playing in a 1st team shirt for the first time having spent most of the last year in the U23’s.

Overall, the performance is one which can be seen as positive, with improvement being shown through the game, as a scrappy first half (which did see some high quality Hinckley tries) turning into a very confident and exciting second which we hope will be signed of what to come.

Playing down the hill and against a quite sizeable wind in the first half the coaching team used this is an opportunity to play the corners as much as possible, with the second half much more focused around the speed of the game with ball in play as high as could be achieved.

The initial tactics showed a return within just 3 minutes - a well set maul from Hinckley was held up short but Sam Read had no problems taking a short line to score next to the posts. Matt Guilfoyle added the conversion.

Within 2 minutes Hinckley had scored again when Guilfoyle exploited a hole in the home rush defence making a break 60 metres out, and after the ball went through a few different pairs of hands in open field Sam Tutt finished in the right hand corner.

The toughest period of the game for Hinckley then followed, although it must be said it came from backing up a number of avoidable negatives which did allow Burton field position. It did however give the defensive maul a good work out which it came through and the work in defence forced an error which lead to Guilfoyle picking up and running in from 80 metres, followed by his own conversion. This was whilst Devon Coulson was in the bin following an off the ball incident.

Burton however are clearly a dedicated and well coached outfit who continued to put huge pressure on the visitors and this lead to two quick tries, the first a well finished play down the right and the second a smart line out move. Both of the tries were converted.

However on the stroke of half time, although it wasn’t the flashiest try Hinckley would score in the day, came one which will greatly please the coaches - with the attacking shape evident following a set piece attack Josh Kent hit a hard line and burst through the defence to score from 30 metres out. Guilfoyle’s conversation left the half time score at 26-14 to Hinckley.

The visitors started the second half under pressure and that did eventually lead to the home side bringing the game back to within a score, before Hinckley pulled away with 4 tries, Shilcock at scrum half instrumentally in keeping the pace of the game high.

The first of these was a short range finish from Ewan Bartlett after a maul had come within inches of the line, and this was then followed from the restart by what was the try of the day, with the ball going through multi pairs of hands with Callum Dacey and Mitch Lamb particularly instrumental in the build up with the final pass going to Shilcock. Dacey converted one of the tries.

With Hinckley now well ahead the confidence grew and two further tries came in the closing ten minutes. A quality break from Lamb and a well - excuted draw and pass allowed Adam Mrtynek to score, and then Read scored his second, expertly picking of an a wide pass from Burton to run in unopposed. The second was converted by Dacey to bring up 50 points.

The final score of the game was a well taken intercept from Sam Read who read a long pass from Burton well to pluck it out of the air and run in from 30 metres. Dacey’s conversion made the score line a round 50.

Next week Hinckley host 3 games back to back - Coventrians at 11.30am, Stow on the Wold at 1pm and then Havant at 3pm as part of the summer festival. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible down to watch.

Hinckley: Dutton, Tutt, Read, Lamb, Mrtynek; Guilfoyle, Pointon; Harper, Hewitt, Bartlett, Ramshaw, Coulson, Bee (c), Higginson, Kent. Reps: Johnson, Harvey, Robinson, Holdaway, Shilcock, Kennerson, Dacey.