Hinckley opened up the 2016/17 with a 50 point win over a Blaydon side who showed 9 National League debutants on Saturday.

Hinckley started the season on the back of a strong pre-season programme and had 5 men on league debut on a sunny day at Leicester Road to greet the arrival of new DoR George Chuter.

Hinckley were on board early and it was the man who wears the hooker’s jersey, Jack Dickinson who went over from the back of a maul, with Joe Wilson converting. Soon after this try was equalised up with the visitors scoring from a lineout themselves, and also missing a relatively simple penalty.

From then on however, it was close to one way traffic for the next 40 minutes, with 6 unanswered tries being scored by the home side with some excellent attacking intent on show. The first of these 6 tries was set up by captain Alex Salt, feeding Callum Dacey for a walk in, before some excellent footwork from Callum Rowe gave Gareth Turner a score after an excellent tracking line. The bonus point was then secured by Wilson with only 30 minutes on the clock, showing an excellent turn of pace from the half way line to go round the full back. Wilson was successful with the conversion of all of these tries for a 28 – 7 lead.

Before half time Joe Glover then cleverly set up Scott Hamilton, who finished expertly in the left hand corner, and then on the whistle Alex Salt smashed over from close range leaving the half time score at 38 – 7, a scoreline no was expecting.

When Salt went over again soon after the break the crowd were wondering just how many would be scored, but the visitors rallied well, scoring more tries of their own to give them a bonus point, although there was still a final score for Hinckley, with Mitch Culpin setting up Josh Smith to take the score to 50. Both second half tries were converted by Wilson.

Next week, Hinckley travel to Yorkshire to take on Huddersfield.