Against a Shrewsbury side already cut adrift at the foot of Mids 2 West (N) KC’s seized the opportunity to register their first win in five and also completed their first double of the season.
Kidder should have opened the scoring inside the first two minutes after creating a two on one down the right but instead of drawing the last defender and giving the extra man a walk in the ball was taken into contact and an attempted offload out of the tackle went forward.However,they did go ahead a couple of minutes later when a nicely delayed pass by flyhalf Andy McLellan sent inside centre Ewan Thompson under the posts and Rhys Pritchard added the extras.
With twelve minutes played possession from a five metre scrum set up a ruck on the goal line,again under the posts,and Thompson joined in with the forwards to plunge over for his second try,duly improved by Pritchard to double the lead to 14-0.At this stage it was all a little too easy for the home side but ten minutes later Shrews’ inside centre Nick Smout made a good break to get in behind Kidder’s defence and when he was tackled the visitors secured the ruck ball whilst playing a penalty advantage and with none accruing their No 10 Richard Pearce kicked the goal from the 22 to get them on the board.
In the next ten minutes flanker Mike Protheroe and second row Jack Tunstall both made eye catching runs but generally KC’s were beginning to get very sloppy,making hard work of it and conceding far too many penalties.All that was really required was for them to get the basics right and three minutes before the interval McLellan showed how it should be done when,from lineout possession on Shrews’ 22 he simply ran hard and direct straight through some flimsy defence to score,once more beneath the posts,and Pritchard’s conversion stretched the advantage to 21-3 although it should have been considerably more given the amount of ball Kidder had enjoyed in the first forty minutes.
After their rather unconvincing first half display the home side needed to up their game but instead continued to ship penalties,enabling Shrewsbury to establish territory until an overthrown lineout fifteen metres out was picked off by Protheroe.After that KC’s at last began to get into their stride with fullback Freddie Morgan fielding a kick by Shrews and setting off on a long run from deep.The ball was moved left to his brother Arthur who did well to hold onto a testing pass around his ankles and he almost made it all the way but was held up over the line.The five metre scrum had to be re-set but at the second time of asking scrumhalf Chris Pinner picked up and spotting a gap in the visitors’ fringe defence he scampered over virtually unchallenged for the bonus point fourth try and Pritchard again added the two points.
Two minutes later a surging run by replacement wing Ryan Tiene had Shrews in full retreat and when the ball reached McLellan his deft kick was gathered by Freddie Morgan who crossed for the fifth try and before the visitors could draw breath a sidestepping run by Arthur Morgan sent Tiene galloping to the line for a debut try,converted by Pritchard to stretch the lead to 40-3.This burst of scoring with three tries in five minutes put the result beyond doubt but to their credit a game but limited Shrewsbury side did not throw in the towel and a lung bursting run by second row Jamie Price into Kidder’s 22 took him nearly all the way to the line before he was eventually tackled by Pinner but scrumhalf Tom Lowrie - Herz was on hand to score the try.With KC’s then reduced to fourteen men when Thompson was yellow carded there was a sliver of hope for the away side but it was quickly snuffed out by two more Kidder tries in rapid succession.Firstly,Tiene went over at the right corner for his second touch down,superbly converted by Pritchard,and then another elusive Freddie Morgan run was backed up by another well judged McLellan kick and a favourable bounce saw Arthur Morgan score at the left corner.
Despite these set-backs the plucky visitors still kept battling away and although it was no more than a crumb of consolation they completed the scoring when their best handling move of the whole afternoon was finished off by Smout for a very well worked try.
Kidder actually finished the match down to fourteen men again as second row Simon Clarke was also shown yellow in the dying seconds but the emphatic win moved them back above Veseyans into sixth spot in the table with four games left to play.
Next up it is Stafford away on 25th March - KO 3.00 pm.