KC’s 64 Old Coventrians 7

Back in the familiar environment of Mids 2 West (S), KC’s kicked off their 2021 – 2022 league campaign with a home fixture against Old Coventrians and despite fielding a team largely unrecognisable from the side which featured at Lichfield in their last pre covid match on 7th March 2020 they eventually swept aside the somewhat limited visitors,running in ten tries in the process.
From the very start the KC forwards appeared to have the measure of their opposite numbers and after dominating both possession and territory in the early exchanges they opened the scoring after thirteen minutes with an unconverted try by loosehead prop Aaron Crawley and just five minutes later No 8 Ryan Wainwright burst through the visitors’ defence to double the advantage.
From the re-start Covs began to get a foothold in the game for the first time and with 25 minutes on the clock they were rewarded with a try by their No 6 Jon Armour, successfully improved to reduce the arrears to 10-7, but KC quickly re-established their superiority with a try wide out by left wing Jim Tildesley which was excellently converted by centre Jack O’Hagan to restore the hosts’ ten point advantage.
KC continued to have the upper hand and five minutes before halftime a quickly taken penalty by skipper Chris Pinner caught Covs napping as the scrumhalf scampered over from 25 metres out and O’Hagan’s conversion gave KC’s a 24-7 interval lead.
Ten minutes into the second period KC won clean lineout ball from a throw between halfway and Covs’ 10 metre line and Nathan Ward made good ground to enable replacement wing Sam Foster to cut inside and score under the posts with O’Hagan again adding the extras.
The visitors were now clearly wilting in the face of relentless KC’s pressure and in particular simply could not handle the pace, power and balanced running of the Tildesley brothers, conceding three further tries in the space of ten minutes, Firstly from another lineout Ward again made inroads and the ball was moved left to Jim who forced his way over at the corner, brother George then bewildered Covs’ defence with his footwork to cross the whitewash before handling errors under their own posts gifted him a second try. were converted by O’Hagan to bring up the fifty points for the home side.
Now out of sight,KC’s took their foot off the pedal. After spurning a golden opportunity with the line at their mercy, it was almost a quarter of an hour before they got the scoreboard ticking over again when second row Simon Clarke plunged over from a five metre penalty and George Tildesley then rounded things off with a flourish by completing his hat-trick after his sheer pace proved too hot for the visitors to handle. O’Hagan improved both of the late scores to make it seven successful kicks out of ten and KC,s could reflect on a very satisfactory afternoon and a great start to the season which owes much to the pre-season efforts of the players and Head Coach Sam Verrals together with his assistants.
Tougher assignments will of course have to be faced, beginning next week with an away trip to Old Laurentians – KO 3.00pm.

Martin Easton