Report provided by KC Press Secretary Martin Easton.....

This was always going to be a tough fixture against a physical side who,had they not started the season with a fifteen point deduction,would now be second in Mids Two West (South).To make matters worse,KC’s were forced to field a makeshift pack but all fifteen starters and the three subs stuck to their task for the whole eighty minutes and made the home side work hard for their seventh win out of eight.
Playing up the considerable slope,KC’s found themselves trailing 5-0 inside the first three minutes after Berkswell moved lineout ball to the right and then switched back left from a ruck to create space for their hooker to go over.Ten minutes later KC’s were caught offside in front of their posts and the hosts’ kicker knocked over the penalty.KC’s battled manfully to stem the tide but conceded again when Berkswell’s No 10,ignoring a three man overlap,chose to kick instead and Berks won the foot race to score at the left hand corner and move 13-0 ahead.
Flyhalf Chris Pinner put Kidder on the board with a routine penalty but on the half hour they went further behind.A squint lineout throw handed possession to the home side and they were able to set up a ruck under KC’s posts and win a penalty.Kidder’s tight eight had been in all sorts of trouble and,not surprisingly,Berkswell opted for a scrum.It had to be reset but Kidder were again penalised resulting,almost inevitably,in a pushover try for the hosts at the third time of asking.The conversion extended their lead to 20-3 but KC’s scrum began to stabilise and they would not have been too disappointed to reach the break still with a foothold in the match.
Unfortunately,only four minutes into the second period Berks scored a converted bonus point try at the end of a fine passage of play which did ,however,include a blatant forward pass which was missed by the ref.Despite this setback,KC’s took the game to the home side at every opportunity and a quarter of an hour from the end their spirited second half performance was rewarded.A kick through by Pinner had the hosts back pedalling and although Kidder lost ruck ball right on the tryline,Berks’ clearance kick was charged down and centre Andy McLellan was able to put replacement right wing Rob Matthews in at the corner for his first senior try.
The defeat saw KC’s slip two places in the table and they will look to get back to winning ways when they entertain Droitwich on 3rd December.