Hinckley travelled to Wharfedale for a probable first fixture between the two clubs in good spirits despite last week’s lose to Sale. Scott Hamilton replaced Alex Salt as captain, Luke Coltman and Mark Deaville made 1st league appearances of the season, whilst there where league debuts, whilst Craig Fillier, George Marsden and Conor Steptoe all made league debuts.

The game started poorly, with the home backs scoring after just a couple of minutes. However Hinckley then managed to build some field position, with Joe Glover converting a penalty after 10 minutes having missed one a few minutes early.

Wharfedale cancelled this out with a penalty straight from the kick off however Hinckley then scored two tries in 4 minutes, the first moving the ball well of a turnover leading to Callum Dacey scoring in the left hand corner, with the second try being an excellent team score finished on the right hand side by Alex Norris.

Glover kicked a second penalty on 23 minutes, although this was again cancelled out quickly, and although Hinckley had a number of try scoring chances before half time, it was Wharfedale who went added from a converted try from a lineout.

Coming out for the second half, Hinckley were full of confidence that a second win on the road was there for the taking, however those hopes were quickly dashed, with Wharfedale scoring 4 tries in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Although with all 4 of the tries there were some system errors in the Hinckley defence, Wharfedale should be credited with how clinically they took these and will no doubt have some of them in the highlights reel come the end of the season. The second of the four came from a penalty try, following a knock down from Hamilton, which lead to him spending 10 minutes in the bin.

At 44 – 16, the game could have got ugly however once the visitors managed to spend some time on the ball, they showed the same promise which was on show in the first half with the try bonus point now the main aim, and a flowing move from side to side lead to the 3rd try of the day from Dacey in the 58th minute to make that a realistic possibility.

When George Marsden then went over with 12 minutes to go, following an intelligent kick by Dacey, and then Craig Filler doing the same three minutes later after a Lord intercept, with Lord converting one of the tries, suddenly the minimum of a second bonus point looked very likely. However with the visitors pushing the game, Wharfedale nicked an intercept in the final minutes, meaning Hinckley had to settle for the try bonus.

In summary, a game which had some very impressive returns, in particular the teams attacking play but at the same time some very disappointing moments, which need to be fixed in the coming weeks.

Next week, last year’s runners up Sedgely Park visit Leicester Road, kick off 3pm.