Rugby is an annoying and complex game......

Rugby is a complex game, and with complexity often comes frustrations, and frustrating is what Saturday was for Hinckley. Although it would be insulting to the visitors to say Hinckley were dominant for most of the game, the home side certainly had the lions share of possession and territory but were unable to convert, whereas the visitors converted their opportunities and, on the back of an excellent defensive effort deserved to take away the victory.

It was a very cagey first ten minutes from both sides, with the home side pleased not to concede an early try as has been an issue in the opening games of the year. After that Hinckley began to build some pressure although making the gain line was a real struggle, and it took until the 25th minute for the opening score, when, after a series of lineouts and scrums Alex Tansley fed Ben Pointon for the opening try, Joe Wilson converted.

Disappointingly however, the lead only lasted a few minutes with a strong Hinckley defence broken by a missed tackle on one of the visiting second rows took the score back to 7 all.

Then, on half time what was probably the turning point of the game, a pass in the Hinckley midfield was called to be forward when it looked like a genuine try scoring opportunity might be on, and from the resulting scrum Otley went to the corner with the forwards from that scoring their second try and taking a 14-7 lead into the break.

The second half saw Hinckley have the majority of the pressure and although genuine chances were at a premium, the positions that the home side got themselves into meant they were disappointed not to come away with scores on at least 4 occasions, and it took until the 76th minute for the score to be equalled up with a try line to try line attack leading to a score for Mitch Lamb converted by Joe Glover.

At this point, the game could then go either way and unfortunately it went the way of the visitors when they were seated a penalty 40 metres out which they kicked with the final play.

Hinckley can have no complaints about the result - it wasn’t a poor performance by any stretch of the imagination but once again the conversion rate in the opposition 22 has to be better.