Kenilworth return to winning ways against Syston​​​​​​​ on emotional day for club

With a number of players returning from injury and unavailability the Kenilworth squad was close to full strength against 7th placed Leicestershire side Syston who narrowly edged the away fixture earlier in the season.

With a bright sun at their backs the home side attempted to pin the Syston back three in their half via some deep kicks. It was apparent that the visitors were well organised with an impressive press in their defensive set up. Another strength was the very strong place kicking skills of their full back, who opened the scoring after Kenilworth infringed at a ruck.

The home side bounced back with an impressive catch and drive try, Randle soaring to take the throw and Chaz Hudon on the back of the drive to score.

Full Back Mark O'Connor converted from the right flank and his place kicking was to prove vital in the home side's win.

The first 20 minutes were a tight affair with both sides trying to go through the phases to find an edge, Syston soon narrowed the margin with another penalty.

The sizeable home pack were starting to turn the screw with both scrum and line out looking in fine fettle. Another penalty and kick to the corner saw some strong bursts from Andresen and Kavanagh before the ball was moved left for fly half Charlie West to pounce, O'Connor missing the kick - 12-6. The full back soon atoned for this miss with another penalty to take the score at half time to 15-6.

After a cagey opening to the second half some good defensive work in the pack caused the visitors to infringe, West kicked the penalty to the corner and the pack powered over with Hudson on the ball again. O'Connor kicked a difficult conversion to make it 22-6.

The home side have had an unfortunate knack of letting opponents back into the game over recent weeks and 2 quick converted tries and a penalty suddenly saw the home side fall behind.

However it was clear that work had been done in training to address this and Kenilworth came surging back, the highlight being a 50-22 from hooker Charlie Morris which got the biggest cheer of the afternoon.

Another penalty was dispatched to the corner, the outstanding Randle dominated the sky and the pack rumbled over with Hudson scoring his 3rd of the afternoon along with the bonus point secured. This was followed up by another excellent O'Connor penalty and Kenilworth secured a vital 32-23 victory.