Kidderminster Carolians will be disappointed not to come away from their encounter at Crewe & Nantwich with any league points, after suffering a 31 points to 15 defeat in their latest match. Although Crewe enjoyed the majority of possession in the opening stages KCs’ well-organised defence, with Mike Protheroe and Chris Pinner to the fore, kept them at bay.

KCs were penalised at the breakdown on numerous occasions, and they struggled to come to terms with the referee's interpretation of the new ruck laws, and this allowed Crewe to keep mounting attacks. The referee finally ran out of patience with KCs’ infringements, and showed a yellow card for slowing the ball down at a ruck. The Crewe pressure finally told after 33 minutes when a midfield break created space for their wing forward to cross the line for a converted try.

KCs did have their moments however, and soon had an opportunity to score a try of their own, only for a dropped pass to halt their progress. They did reduce the deficit on 38 minutes though, when Pinner kicked a simple penalty to make the score 7 - 3 in Crewe's favour.

Crewe continued to press, and managed to score their second try on the stroke of half time after KCs' overworked defence missed a couple of tackles near the line, to increase their lead to 12 - 3.

The second half started badly for the visitors, as their poor kick-off gave Crewe time and space to launch another attack, with their strong-running forwards making inroads before the left wing touched down, with the successful conversion giving them a 19 -3 lead. A further kicking error, this time from a 22 metre drop out, gave Crewe good field position. They moved the ball across the field a couple of times before their hooker crashed over in the corner for another try.

KCs started to work their way back into the game at this stage, and once they stopped conceding penalties they were able to put the home defence under pressure. After retaining possession for several phases, and getting in behind the Crewe defence, they scored their first try through replacement hooker Grant Jones, converted by Pinner, to make the score 24 - 10 with 20 minutes remaining.

Further pressure resulted in a yellow card for Crewe 5 minutes later, and KCs capitalised with some slick handling to put Matt Grainger into space out wide, and he crossed the try line to narrow the deficit to 24 -15.

With time running out KCs were running the ball from everywhere, and as the Crewe defence tired they were finding gaps across the pitch. Having made 60 yards with an attack from their own line, and striving for a try that would give them a losing bonus point, a speculative pass in midfield was dropped and Crewe pounced on the error to race away and score the final try of the match, which was converted to give them victory by 31 points to 15.

KCs can take credit for their defence against a well-organised side, but they will continue to struggle to win games if they do not reduce the number of penalties they give away. This week's league match is at home against unbeaten league leaders Whitchurch, with a 3pm kick-off, and they will need to raise all areas of their game if they are to cause an upset.