After the abject display at Longton and the World Cup final Hinckley returned to N3M action hosting Newport RFC from Shropshire. Hinckley were buoyed by the return from long term injury of Ryan Oakes and Mitch Culpin while Sam Greasley reclaimed his place on the left wing to add power, guile and pace to the back division. Callum Dacey moved to the right wing and Huw Marsden replaced absentee Tom Morris. The bench was made up of Phil McQueen, Rich Harris and another returnee to the club lock Ed Dunn.

On a sunny and breezy afternoon Hinckley kicked off down the slope and took some time to put together any meaningful attacking moves plagued by the same basic mistakes evident at Longton. Newport started the brighter and had the first chance to score although Liam Holder pushed a long range penalty wide as Hinckley came in from the side. Gradually the home side got into gear as Ben Avent was on hand to score wide on the left after Sam Greasley and Mitch Culpin had done the approach work. Mark Lord converted with a fine kick for a 7- 0 lead.
Ryan Oakes made a powerful break in midfield to keep the pressure on the visitors while Joe Glover intercepted a wayward Newport pass, ran virtually the length of the field, handing off two defenders to ultimately be stopped just short of the line. Callum Dacey, in support, was first to the breakdown and dived over to score Hinckley’s second try. Lord’s conversion was a formality moving the hosts out to 14-0. Newport were overwhelmed again minutes afterwards as again Greasley assisted to put Culpin in for Hinckley’s third try although Lord couldn’t add the extras from, again, wide on the left.
Newport were under severe pressure all over the field and from a dynamic rolling maul Luke Coltman added Hinckley’s bonus point gaining try converted by Lord. Handling mistakes by the visiting backs aided and abetted their own downfall as the ever reliable Matt Fearn pounced and flopped over from all of a metre! Lord pushed the conversion wide, but a score of 31-0 after 30 minutes was beyond all expectations, least of all from the visitors perspective.
Hinckley took their foot off the gas, as they are apt to do, with Alex Salt and Avent being yellow carded as half time was reached although the home side was in the ascendancy 31 points to the good.

To cover the yellow cards Ed Dunn was introduced into the game while Dacey took a rest and even with men down Hinckley dominated the close encounters immediately after the break. Another rolling maul forced Newport back and Glover sniped his way over via a post for another home try with Lord landing the conversion.
The only time the dangerous centre Hendry Vaka got free for Newport resulted in a try for Holder, who also stepped up to add the conversion. However, normal service was resumed and with a full complement of players Hinckley’s rolling maul caused more havoc as Coltman got his second touchdown with Lord converting. Captain Salt added Hinckley’s eighth try unconverted on the hour for a 50 points to 7 lead.
Lord was withdrawn with Oakes going to fly half and Rich Harris joining the action. Prop Ewan Bartlett epitomised the Hinckley desire chasing and scragging the visitors fly half to indirectly set up the attacking scrum which lead to the best try of the game. The ball was moved wide through a number of pairs of hands with Salt providing the scoring pass to enable Greasley to burn around the beleaguered Newport defence for try number nine. Harris was, unfortunately, off target with the conversion. The referee ended the game slightly short time wise to end the visitors nightmare as they were unfortunately on the end of Hinckley’s best display of the season so far.
This level of performance has been coming for a few weeks now and bodes well for the forthcoming hard challenges away to Nuneaton next week (apparently on the Stadium pitch 2pm ko) and the home showdown with Old Hales the following week.
Congratulations to all the hard work put in by all the players and coaches to turn things around after the “pottering around” in Stoke last game up. Some fantastic rugby to entertain a large crowd - Well done!

Hinckley 2nd XV (who also beat their Newport counterparts today) take on Nuneaton in a Midlands Reserve league encounter at Leicester Road this coming Wednesday (11th November) under lights with a 7.30pm kick off. Support would be very welcome and well deserved as the Staghounds are also top of their league.