Hinckley side’s never give up – it is something which has ben a hallmark of the club for year’s and this was one of those afternoons where despite going down to a 40 point defeat, the 20 men who travelled to Guernsey could not be accused of not giving it their all.

By the end, it would be fair to say things on the field were a bit chaotic – Matthew Fearn was forced off with injury after just 2 minutes, replacement hooker Luke Johnson was in the back row, Scott Hamilton had come on at 12, and then gone off injured, after Josh Smith had also left injured, and Ben Pointon was out on the left wing. There were no fit replacements on the side line for the last 20 minutes, and yet the squad kept going, which ended with Callum Rowe scoring a try on the final whistle.

It had been a disrupted week in the build up as well. AJ Johnson pulled out due to an arm injury, Toby Baldwin was retained by England 7s, Mitch Lamb and Luke Coltman were also unavailable, whilst the injury list now contains an entire first team, but the side that flew over did show some real promise in the first 20 minutes before being blown away either side of half time.

Playing with the wind, Hinckley dominated the early phases which lead to Aaron Florestein being held up over the line, but eventually Joe Wilson gave Hinckley a lead with an early penalty. However Guernsey showed what there are known for, some excellent 1st phase attack which put them 14 – 3 up.

Sam Greening then drove over for a very well finished team try which with Wilson’s conversion made it 14 – 10, but two quick tries, with a Smith yellow card in the middle sent the home side in 28 – 10 up.

The game was then over as a contest soon after half time, and try as hard as Hinckley might, the home side ran in 5 second half tries, to just the one in return from Callum Rowe, leaving the final score at 57 – 17.

Chris Campbell