Hinckley entertained close neighbours and rivals Nuneaton in this latest round of N3M matches.
Mark Lord came back into the side as the only change from the Newport game while Liam Warren, Ewan Bartlett and Alex Branson made up the bench.

Nuneaton kicked off down the slope, but against a stiff cold wind and perhaps had the better of the early exchanges. They forced the home side into defensive mode although both sides suffered from a nervy start with the game punctuated with handling mistakes and poor decision making in attack. Hinckley had the first chance to open the scoring, but Joe Glover pushed his penalty goal attempt narrowly wide.
The game was tied into a midfield confrontation with both sides trying to move the ball wide on a firm pitch, but both cancelled each other out rather than threaten to score a try. A booming touch finder from Lord forced Nuns to concede territory back onto their own five metre line putting Hinckley on the offensive. From a line out Ben Marshall won good ball at the tail and the rolling maul was initiated. Hinckley rumbled the visitors back over their own line for Luke Coltman to touch down. Glover added the conversion for a home 7-0 lead.
The remainder of the first half was a tight affair as local derbies tend to be with Hinckley guilty of giving away some soft penalties enabling Nuns to relieve pressure when under the cosh. Nuns added a penalty just before half time to make the score 7-3 at the interval.

Now playing into the wind Hinckley set up camp on the visitors try line forcing a series of five metre scrummages and both Tom Morris and Lord were held up on the line by the combative Nuns defence and the chance was gone. Nuns responded with a break out converted try to take the lead at 7-10. Back came the home side, by doing the simple things well and dominated proceedings. Although Matt Fearn and the visitors scrum half were yellow carded Glover converted the resultant penalty to tie the score at 10-10.
Continuing the pressure and stealing a number of line outs courtesy of Matt Walker Hinckley scored again moving the ball wide for Mitch Lamb to touchdown wide on the left. Glover couldn't add the conversion, but the home side were in the lead 15-10. More was to come from Hinckley as the game became a little more fiesty, with the visitors attempting to take the law into their own hands, but they were well controlled by the referee. Matt Fearn was held up over the Nuns line while Marshall was adjudged to have knocked on when scoring wide on the right. Still pinned on their own line Nuns conceded further five metre scrums and the pressure eventually told as Morris got over for the home sides third try with Glover adding the conversion to take Hinckley out to a 22-10 lead. Hinckley should have closed out the game, but were guilty of switching off and conceding a soft converted try as Nuneaton narrowed the gap to 22-17 in the dying moments gaining a losing bonus point in the process.

Although Hinckley have now beaten Nuneaton in the last four league encounters all have been close and reflective of the passion generated in such a local derby. The rugby on show wasn’t the best from either side today in front of a sizeable crowd and Hinckley failed to gain a bonus point in the ultimate quest for promotion. However, they travel to Old Halesonians next week 3pm kick off to continue that quest.