Hinckley concluded the first half of the season with an expected tough battle in poor conditions up in Sandbach, coming away with a 20 - 11 victory.

Hinckley have visited the Cheshire club in either late November or early December for the last 4 seasons and as has become the norm, arrived to face a wet pitch (although in good condition to start with) and wind blowing straight across the field, but after some tough opening exchanges, the visitors went 10 - 0 up inside 20 minutes.

The first score came 10 minutes in, courtesy of number 8 Huw Marsden who expertly controlled the ball at the base of the scrum to score and give a 5 - 0 lead. 10 minutes later, an excellent line and then offload from Liam Warren set up Ben Avent to give him a score in consecutive games. In difficult conditions both conversions were missed.

The rest of the half saw Hinckley putting some good attacking phases together and should really have come away with something more, but some poor decision making and some disappointing execution let them down. Sandbach looked dangerous in attack, however some excellent tactical kicking from Mitch Culpin and Mark Lord meant the majority of the half was played in Sandbach territory.

In the second half Sandbach where on the board first with a simple penalty, before Hinckley then got a third score - an excellent kick from the man of the match Lord, lead to an error by the home back 3 players giving Josh Smith a simple run in after Mitch Lamb collected the loose ball - Lord converted for a 17 - 3 lead.

On all occasions when visiting Bradwell Road however when Hinckley have been ahead the home side have come back, never more evident than in 2013 when they turned over a 19 - 3 deficit to win 31 - 25, and such an occurrence was given a chance of happening again when, with captain Matthew Fearn in the bin the home side scored an unconverted try and a penalty to bring the game back to 17 - 11 with 8 minutes to play.

However, excellent kicking from Lord meant the majority of the final minutes were spent in the home sides half, and when the pack won a penalty at a scrum under the posts, Lord converted it with the last kick of the game to secure a 20 - 11 win.

In all fairness to the home side, a losing bonus point was something they deserved. It was tough battle against a team who are currently in a battle at the bottom of the table and Hinckley will be more than happy to come away with another victory, meaning the 100% record stays in tact with half the season gone. What is also encouraging is that wins are still being picked up with a number of players on the injury list, currently including Luke Coltman, Mark Deaville, Tom Morris, captain Alex Salt, Joe Glover, Ryan Oakes, Sam Greasley and Craig Hastie. With some of these players coming back into contention for selection for next Saturday's visit of Sutton Coldfield, and the rest for the county cup fixture against Syston on the 2nd January, there will be some selection headaches over the next few weeks.

2015 concludes with a home fixture against Sutton Coldfield next week, kicking off at 2.15pm.