Hinckley entertained Scunthorpe at Leicester Road in the opening game of the 2015/16 league season. The weather was cool, sunny and bright while the pitch was in magnificent condition reflective of the work done on it over the summer break.

The home coaches had to contend with some late changes from the team that did so well last week versus Leicester Lions. Out through injury were Mark Lord and Mitch Culpin, while Ewan Bartlett and Sam Massarella were unavailable. However, Luke Coltman, Ben Avent, Phil McQueen and Tomasi Mocelutu came into the starting line up. Sam Driver, Rob Bryant and Callum Dacey all made their league debut.

Hinckley kicked off and immediately threatened the visitors line. An attacking line out followed by a Scunthorpe indiscretion resulted in Joe Glover converting a penalty for the first score of the day.
Scunthorpe responded with full back Steve Johnson scoring a penalty to level the game at 3-3, but then missed another penalty chance that would have taken the visitors into the lead.
The game entered a disappointing phase for the home side as they hardly managed a coherent attack being pegged back in their own half by the combative Lincolnshire side. Both scrum and line out creaked, any attacking options were wasted and although Tom Morris got close to scoring there was nobody in support to finish the move. Glover did, however, score his second penalty immediately followed by a piece of magic from Sam Greasley that brightened up the dull proceedings thus far. From a midfield turnover Greasley scorched firstly around, then through the Scunthorpe defence to be brought down close to the line. His well timed offload enabled the supporting Mitch Lamb to go over for a fine try. Glover added the conversion, but missed a further penalty attempt as Hinckley lead 13-3 at the half time interval.

The second half was similar to the first in that both teams tussled for the breakthrough, with mistakes a plenty leading to a stop start game with neither team able to take the initiative. Johnson added his second penalty for Scunthorpe to close the score to 13-6. On the hour Hinckley finally got some go forward in the tight exchanges and the rolling maul made an appearance. Luke Coltman was at the back of the devastating maul which rumbled the visitors back over their own line for the Hinckley hooker to touch down. Glover missed the conversion, but the score moved onto 18-6 in the home sides favour.
Scunthorpe capitalised on an Hinckley midfield error in attack, booted the ball downfield, ignored an easy penalty chance, kicked for the corner and scored from the resultant line out drive to come back to 18-11. Johnson put over a fine conversion from wide on the right for a 18-13 score with ten minutes to go.
Hinckley lost full back Josh Smith to a yellow card during the build up to the visitors try, but Glover settled the ship with a late penalty to deny Scunthorpe a losing bonus point they probably deserved.

Final score: Hinckley 21 Scunthorpe 13.

Although a win is a win, Hinckley were not at their fluid best and perhaps underperformed throughout. Plenty to work on in training this week before the trip to Sutton Coldfield next Saturday.