Syston’s Barkby Road ground was the destination for Hinckley in this latest round of games in N3M. The visitors were boosted by the return from injury of captain Alex Salt and Joe Glover. Rob Bryant replaced Josh Smith at centre while Ben Marshall, Dylan Weddle and Ewan Bartlett made up the bench.
Bearing in mind the recent weather the pitch was in good condition, a slight breeze blew towards the clubhouse as the game kicked off in front of a vociferous home crowd sprinkled with members of the Hinckley faithful.

From the off Syston tore into Hinckley monopolising both possession and territory going through the phases to good effect, but initially failing to score points. Hinckley defended really well and in trying to gain some meaningful possession fell foul of the referee, which unfortunately continued throughout the game, directly contributing to the final result.

James Morgan put Syston ahead with the second of many kickable penalties awarded to the home side. To add insult to Hinckley injury the home side also scored two tries, one converted and added another penalty to take a 18-0 lead into the halftime break. All Hinckley received was a yellow card for Steve Harvey for an alleged high tackle.

Shell shocked Hinckley were on the receiving end of some valuable advice from the coaching team during the interval and came out a different side. It looked as it would, indeed, be a game of two contrasting halves.

From the kick off, pressure was forced onto Syston as both Hinckley forwards and backs combined to set up the away sides first score. From a pre planned backs move Rob Bryant punctured the home defence for a well worked try. Mark Lord landed the conversion and the visitors were back in the game. Further pressure on the home scrum (although the line out misfired as did some kicking out of defence) and the appearance of the Hinckley rolling maul put the visitors in the ascendancy.
From one such dynamic rolling maul the ball was moved along the Hinckley backline as Mitch Lamb put Sam Greasley in for a try wide out on the left. Lord’s conversion was narrowly wide, but the score was narrowed to 18-12 with all to play for. Lamb and Greasley nearly repeated the trick minutes later while the Hinckley rolling maul continued to pound the home line with Luke Coltman very close to getting over for a score. Unfortunately, the chances went and Syston got out of jail.
Alleged inappropriate comments to the referee late in the game meant a red card for Alex Salt and Syston stuck the ball up their jumper and ground out the remaining time to gain the victory.

The result reflected the fact that Syston probably wanted it more on the day, but whatever happened Hinckley never got the rub of the green from the official throughout the game - a good job a statistician wasn't counting the penalties.

No doubt I and every other Hinckley supporter who watched today’s game expects a backlash at Lichfield next week. OK the unbeaten run is gone, but there is still a title to be won and Hinckley are not in a bad position to do exactly that - incidentally the losing bonus point took the gap at the top to thirteen points.

So win or lose there will be a match report - unlike many of our rivals!