It’s been one of the toughest starts for Kingswood in a league campaign for many seasons, but there are signs on the horizon that things are moving in the right direction. While overall playing numbers have been maintained thanks to an influx of new faces, the loss of a number of key players has meant that Kingswood’s players are having to learn to gel on the job.

Despite the new signings of Mike Gibbs, Tom Baker, Ashley Baldwin, Adam Jefferies, Harry Parkin, Mike Smith, Owen Stapleford and James Hall, plus the returning faces of Adam Bateman, Will Harris and Charlie Robbins, Kingswood have lost the services of Nick Coe, Joe Jones-Griffiths, Tom Williams, Joe McMullen, Lance Chappell, Steve Ridgway, Gaz Williams, Mike Wynne and Dave Tomlin, plus the long-term absentees of Ashley Honeywell, Jake Gent, Anthony Davies, Dan Harris, Harri Richards, Jamie Rees, Matthew Rich and Nathan Walker. This has meant that whilst quality remains, the players are having to regroup as a unit while facing tricky opposition.

This week, Kingswood welcomed Minchinhampton to Grimsbury Road. With Captain Mark Oakley also unavailable, Vice Captain, Sam Maddison, led a new-look Kingswood squad out in search of their first win of the season.

It was a sloppy start from Kingswood, as the visitors raced into an early 0-10 lead. However, Kingswood eventually woke up and a Paul Allen, returning to the pitch for the 1st time this season, grabbed a try after a great flowing move. Ian Kirley added the extras, and just before half-time, the Centre also added a penalty to make the scores level going into the break.

Kingswood eventually went on to lead for the first time in the game early in the 2nd half, when danger man Allen, sliced through the opposition once again to dive under the posts. Unfortunately, while in the process of scoring, Allen injured his knee-cap, which effectively ended his afternoon.

As Kingswood tired, penalties started to creep in, and during 2 separate periods of the game when they were reduced to 14 men, Minchinhampton secured 2 tries thanks to their trundling pack, to put them less than a converted try in front.

With just a few minutes remaining, the hosts struggled to regain territory, and when Minchinhampton secured yet another penalty, their Fly-Half struck over the penalty to take the game out of reach for Kings and remove any chance of a bonus losing point. Final Score: Kingswood 17 – 25 Minchinhampton.

The result sees Kingswood rooted to the bottom of the table, with the 5 point deduction incurred from last season’s administrative error.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. There were sparks of brilliance during the game that showed with huge commitment to training, this squad is more than capable of finishing in the top 4 of the league, and with some of the long term injuries coming back in the next few months, there is hope that Kingswood can start to move up the table soon.

This Saturday, Kingswood have the chance to clear their heads as they welcome Gloucester 3’s Cotham Park to Grimsbury Road for a Combination Cup fixture. As Gloucester 3 is not yet underway, this will be the away side’s first competitive game of the season.
Finally, a huge thank you to Richard Clayton of www.bs3photography.co.uk who took some fantastic photos of the game, that’s despite being more used to snapping beautiful brides, rather than deformed Forwards.