Kingswood Undone By Classy Painswick

The recent state of injuries has taken its toll on Kingswood. Having cried off a cup fixture last weekend against Painswick due to lack of numbers, this weekend saw a slight rest bite from the difficult situation with James Willmott, Anthony Davies, Dave Tomlin and Alex Green returning. Sadly, Mark Oakley, Dean Stephens, Joe Jones-Griffiths, Tom Jones-Griffiths, Ian Kirley and Paul Allen were all still unavailable. No. 8 Mark McGarrigle was called up from the 2nd team to play Full-Back and Ashley Honeywell started at No. 10.

Painswick took the lead on 18 minutes after a clever move from the lineout. The ball was secured by their jumper and their No. 7 ran a loop from the back, received the ball off the top half way into his run, before running up the touchline channel and crashing over the line. The conversion was unsuccessful. 0-5

Things then got worse for Kingswood as they lost the services of Anthony Davies with a shoulder injury, despite this being his first game back from injury. Nathan Pratt came on in his place.

Kingswood were then awarded a penalty on the 23rd minute after Painswick were penalised for not rolling away. Ben Phillips sent over an excellent long range conversion to bring the scores back to 3-5.

With 34 minutes on the clock, Painswick extended their lead further, again with a lineout 5 metres out. This time it was route 1, a powerful catch and drive that looked like it was going over anyway, but the Painswick Scrum Half broke up the right and dived over the line after a quick dummy pass. 3-10

From the restart Painswick were nearly over again after a devastating fast paced counter attack, but the final pass was deemed forward and the try was disallowed.

With half an hour gone, Painswick scored again, this time it was their Full-Back who crossed after quick hands in the Backs. 3-17

And that’s how the first half finished. Painswick’s hard running lines at the breakdown causing no end of problems for Kingswood and with the K on the back foot, they were struggling to get any sort of attacking threat together.

Half Time: Kingswood 3-17 Painswick

The 2nd half went in pretty much the same way, apart from Kingswood’s tackling at times was awful, sometimes comical, and Painswick were gifted some tries should never have been conceded, allowing Painswick to race away to a 3-34 Lead

The game changed after the hour mark, when Painswick’s No. 19 was given a straight red for an awful dump tackle on Ashley Honeywell. From the resulting penalty, Kingswood kept Painswick pinned in their 22 and eventually a rolling maul crashed over the line and Steve Trevelyan was on the bottom to secure the try. 8-34

And that’s how it ended. A performance on par with Cheltenham Civil Service by the end, but somewhat understandable given that fact some players were out of position and the current level of absenteeism.

Kingswood now face an important away fixture at Aretians, who languish near the foot of the table but who have recently hit some good form. An important fixture all round.

Final Score: Kingswood 8 – 34 Painswick