South knock out holders Hinckley in Leics County Cup.

Leicestershire County Cup holders Hinckley came to Welford Road in the first round of this year’s competition. They were without a number of their “go to” players, while South Leicester were nearly at full strength. The attraction of a day out at Twickenham, no doubt, affecting both sides.
Mark Lord and Will Ward were restored to the line up with Ed Hopkins and Aaron Langan both starting. The extended bench was made up of debutant Joe Lamb, George Ord, Kyle Merrigan and Seb Green.

Initially the game ebbed and flowed with each team committed to a lively local derby and contrasting styles of play. Former South player Kris McFedries was injured early which meant a reshuffle for Hinckley. Mark Lord opened the scoring with a penalty cancelled out soon after by Tom Moxon for Hinckley. Lord added another penalty before breaking through the visitor’s defensive line to feed Josh McLaurin to go over for South’s first try. Lord routinely converted.
McLaurin added south’s second try as did Lord with the conversion to take South out to a 20-3 lead. South kept up the pressure and from a well practiced move the ball was transferred to Gareth Kerr who dived into the corner to score South’s third. Lord’s conversion was wayward.
Hinckley replied just before the interval with a try from No8 Ben Ashfield converted by Moxon for a 25-10 scoreline at half time.

South resumed their assault as Lord again broke through the visitors defence, stepped the full back and put replacement Joe Lamb in for a try with his first touch of the game. Lord’s conversion was narrowly wide.
From then on, however, the momentum changed as the visitors moved up a gear and South got on the wrong side of the referee. Four yellow cards on and around the hour mark put Hinckley on the front foot, although South’s scramble defence held out and Lord relieved some of the pressure with a penalty to extend South’s lead. Not until South were back to a full compliment of players and the replacements took their place on the field did Hinckley score through Robbie Locke who chased a grubber kick and won the race for the touchdown. Moxon was wide with the conversion.
South had the last laugh with quick hands in the backs resulting in Kerr outpacing the Hinckley defence to score under the posts. Lord’s conversion was the last action as referee Greg Garner called a halt to the proceedings with South winning 40 points to 15.

It’s a shame that more spectators weren’t in attendance as both teams played some good rugby. With both sides at full strength this should have been the ideal final to grace the real Welford Road as the LRU showpiece game. Some sort of seeding needs to be introduced to keep the competition relevant to higher placed clubs where league aspirations will always be the priority.

South squad: Graney, Robinson, Cave, Smith, Kerr, Lord, Aley, McLaurin, Johnson, Langan, Bale S, Ward, Hopkins, Coltman, McNaughton, Lamb, Ord, Merrigan, Green.

Josh McLaurin, as well as scoring two tries, was everywhere whether it be carrying the ball or defending with gusto!
Mark Lord controlled the game from fly half while Lee Robinson had some forceful runs although, unusually, not scoring on this occasion.

No doubt we will run into old rivals Syston in the next round!