A shocking,listless and demotivated display by KC’s,their worst of the season by some margin,ended in abject disappointment for their supporters and nothing less than embarrassment for the players as they stuttered to defeat in their last home match of 2015-16 against a lowly Shrewsbury side who simply wanted it more on the day and thoroughly deserved their win.
The visitors established territory straight from the kick off and although a penalty attempt after three minutes never threatened the posts they took the lead five minutes later when their forwards drove over from a lineout in the 22 and second row Luke Mill touched down.
Both sides then each missed a penalty kick at goal but Shrewsbury were looking far livelier with a sluggish KC’s struggling to get out of first gear until midway through the half when they at last managed to put the ball through the hands and it took a fine tackle by Shrews fullback Jack Martin to stop a strong run by left wing Laurence Hughes.At the ruck Kidder were awarded a penalty which they kicked to touch and they almost got over from the throw but had to settle for a couple of five metre scrums and a brief spell of concerted pressure which saw the visitors’ flyhalf Matt Morris yellow carded but even with a man advantage KC’s could not really impose themselves and Shrewsbury were soon back on the attack.A yellow card for Kidder prop Ben Turner evened up the numbers and Shrews twice almost scored a pushover try from five metre scrums.From a third close range scrum they again looked dangerous until a crossing offence enabled a relieved home side to clear their lines but they were not coping with the visitors forwards,for whom No 8 Liam Deery was outstanding,and they were a tad fortunate to still be only trailing by five points at the break.
At the start of the second half Shrewsbury were again the much more purposeful of the two sides as KC’s had to work with slow ball and laboured passing,although they did manage to free Hughes again for another gallop down the left touchline and after a quarter of an hour skipper Chris Pinner slotted over a penalty from fifteen metres to get them on the board.However,just three minutes later Deery picked up at the back of a five metre scrum to set up a ruck right on the line and hooker Lewis Jenkins was on hand to score the try which Morris improved to stretch the lead to 12-3.
The visitors continued to show the greater desire whilst lacklustre KC’s were getting nowhere fast and it was no great surprise when Shrews went further ahead following a neat exchange of passes down the right which sent centre Alan Jebb over for a lovely try,converted by Morris.
Five minutes later Kidder finally sparked into life as scrumhalf Freddie Morgan combined well with Pinner to put replacement wing James Whitehouse in at the right corner and reduce the arrears to 19-8 with fifteen minutes still left to play but any hopes of rescuing the match soon fizzled out as Shrewsbury saw out the game all to comfortably and the home side were left to lick their wounds.
By any standards this was a desperately poor performance by KC’s who have now won only three of their ten league matches since Christmas and they will be looking to end on a high note when they travel to much improved Stafford on Saturday for their last fixture – KO 3.00 pm.