Sat 13 Jan 2024
Old Coventrians 1st XV 36 - 35 Alcester 1st XV
Alcester let slip a healthy lead to lose by a single point at Old Coventrians at the weekend.
Coming off the back of an emphatic win against Leamington last Saturday, Alcester looked to be demonstrating an equally dominant display.
Ieuan Hopkin opened the scoring on the ten-minute mark, bulldozing through his opposition to crash over the line. Before some good hands out wide made it to Alex Chiles who opted to kick ahead, the ball bounced off the boot of the opposing full-back, and spiraled out of control as Jamie Clarke was the first to gather cleanly and run in unchallenged.
Returning from several months out after a fractured jaw, Mark Burrell marked his return by adding himself to Alcester's score sheet, showing that he had lost little of his pace up the wing.
Dwayne Cruickshank added the away side's bonus point try, and both the team and travelling supporters were feeling comfortable and confident in their side's opening performance as they took a 22-0 lead.
However, Old Coventrian's scored two tries before the half time break to announce that they should not be written out of the race just yet.
The home side started the second half strongly and scored within the first few minutes and were now hot on Alcester's tails but the away side scored again through Louis Smith to keep them ahead.
In end to end play, Old Covs scored another to trail by just one point, before Alcester missed a penalty kick at posts which meant, when the home side scored again, they took the lead for the first time in the game.
As both sides fought until the end, there was time for Hopkin to add his second of the game, and look like he'd sealed the deal for his side, but from the resulting kick off, Alcester gave away one last penalty which was successfully kicked and left little time for any reply. The home side came away from the close affair as one-point winners.
