Lichfield visited Leicester Road this week in the latest round of N3M matches. Hinckley had a number of personnel and positional changes with Luke Coltman and Sam Greasley unavailable. Josh Smith and Sam Driver came in while Sam Massarella, Rich Harris, Craig Hastie and Steve Harvey relocated positions. Callum Dacey, Tom Sanderson and Ewan Bartlett occupied the bench.

Hinckley hit the ground running on a dull and chilly afternoon as they pressed the visitors into some desperate defending. Sam Masserella was held up over the Lichfield line after a Mark Lord break and after a further 5 metre scrum Alex Salt broke to feed Joe Glover to score the game’s opening try. Lord added a fine conversion.
A short time later Craig Hastie added Hinckley’s second try as dynamic pressing defence forced the visitors into making mistakes. Lord was wide with the conversion, but a healthy 12-0 lead had been achieved in the opening quarter.
Lichfield couldn’t live with the hosts in the tight forward encounters and with a limited kicking game they threw the ball around to use their pace out wide prompted by Luke Massey. Initial handling errors let them down, but when Hinckley decided to help them by kicking back possession the powerful centre Richard Fielding ran through the home defence for their first try duly converted by Massey.
The home side were jolted into action and spent several minutes camped in the visitors red zone. A series of scrum penalties were taken as Lichfield were again up against it and captain Salt extended Hinckley’s lead with a try from short range as the scrum broke up. Lord added the extras, the referee added the minutes - first half was 50 minutes long - and half time was eventually reached with Hinckley in the ascendancy by 19 points to 7.

Another slow start to the second half saw Hinckley concede two long range penalties that fortunately Massey miscued, a head injury, that would require stitches, to Mark Deaville and Ben Avent limping off. The hosts were guilty of wasting several two on one scoring opportunities which would have probably put the game to bed. They also lost Salt to a yellow card with Lichfield’s Charlie Milner for a bout of handbags and also lost the initiative. Silly mistakes and poor decision making from the home side saw Lichfield seize their chance and Fielding added their second try again converted by Massey to narrow the gap to 19-14.
Deaville came back into the game, which had became an arm wrestle, as the visitors began to exert pressure. However, some strong collective Hinckley defending turned defence into attack and the threat shifted in favour of the home side. Salt was stopped just short of the Lichfield line. After a midfield turnover a series of mauls were rolled towards the visitors line, the referee lost patience with the Lichfield side and awarded a late penalty try for Hinckley’s bonus point gaining score. Lichfield lost prop Dan Taylor to a yellow card for his part in their attempted defence and Lord converted from in front of the posts to complete the scoring 26-14 and take the game.

Again not a vintage performance from Hinckley, but still enough to gain a bonus point and go out alone at the top of the league. So far with the highest scoring record and the meanest defence in the league Hinckley will only get better and I am confident that somebody will suffer soon especially as the grounds are softening up.

No game next week, but hostilities resume away at Longton on the 24th October. Be there!