Kenilworth are on the up despite late jitters

Kenilworth lifted themselves two places up the Midlands One West table with a bonus-point win at fellow strugglers Dunlop.

The wind was to play a significant part in proceedings and, after a scrappy opening, a booming touch-finder from Tom Kendall helped Kenilworth gain a foothold in the Dunlop 22.

The Dunlop lineout conceded the first of a number of penalties and from a five-metre scrum, number eight Chris Wood slipped the ball to Gareth Renowden for the first score. Kendall completed the formalities.

A good turnover from debutant centre Simon Tyler resulted in the first Kenilworth backs foray, but the ball was knocked on and Dunlop were given the opportunity to clear.

With Kenilworth’s scrum in the ascendancy, skipper Oli Cresswell received the ball in midfield and produced a typical barnstorming run to touch down. Kendall again added the extras to open up a 14-point lead.

The sizeable Kenilworth support scented blood as Dunlop’s fly-half McGrory put the restart directly into touch.

However, the resultant scrum was poorly controlled and, following a penalty to touch, the towering Dunlop openside made ground towards the posts before slipping the ball to his supporting team-mate to touch down. The easy conversion was duly slotted over.

With the clock approaching 50 minutes courtesy of a lengthy break for injury to the Dunlop hooker, a comedy of errors with a bouncing ball and numerous deflections led to the award of a Kenilworth penalty.

Backchat from the Dunlop right-winger led to the subsequent addition of ten metres to put the kick in Kendall’s range and he made no mistake to make the half-time score 17-7.

A period of turgid rugby followed the restart, allowing Dunlop to gain both ground and confidence and they reduced the deficit with a drop goal from their scrum-half.

Minutes later, Kenilworth produced their best passage of play, moving the ball first right and then left to create the space for 19-year-old Josh McShane to weave his way over. A surprising miss by Kendall kept the score at 22-10.

The next meaningful attack was to come from Dunlop. Strong running by McGrory drew in the Kenilworth defence and from the subsequent ruck, the scrum-half slipped the ball to Dunlop’s sizeable replacement prop to crash over. The conversion was added to narrow the gap to five.

Kenilworth were becoming increasingly nervous, choosing to run the ball from deep when a judicious hoof may have been a better bet. And, after conceding two penalties and two turnovers in the space of five minutes, McGrory accepted the invitation to bring the deficit down to two points with a well-struck penalty.

The jitters continued and when McGrory lined up another kick at goal, Ks’ hopes of a bonus-point win looked bleak. However, the kick was hooked and Kenilworth were able to take play up to the Dunlop half.

Following excellent work by the forwards, assisted by another Creswell charge, the referee signaled penalty advantage. With Dunlop’s defence scattered, play was shifted to the left flank where McShane went over for his second of the afternoon to gain the bonus-point try.

Kendall missed the difficult conversion, but Kenilworth were able to defend their precarious seven-point lead for the final six minutes.