DK get back on track as their rivals stutter
Dudley Kingswinford enjoyed the perfect weekend as they moved to within a point of the leaders in Midlands 1 West.
An impressive second-half showing saw DK power to a 52-7 derby-day success at home to Kidderminster while their fellow promotion hopefuls, Stoke and Kenilworth, both tasted defeat.
Kenilworth, who ended DK’s perfect start to the season the week before lost 17-10 at Hereford while Stoke crashed 47-12 to Worcester.
“We did our job on Saturday and now we are one point off the top,” said DK head coach Neil Shillingford.
“The other results went for us, but as I have said before, anyone can beat anyone on any given week in this division.
“We face Lichfield away next and that is a tricky fixture.
“They have been scoring a lot of points and our defence will need to be on point.”
The victory over Kidderminster was comfortable enough in the end, but Shillingford was a touch disappointed with his side’s first-half showing as they led 12-0 at the break.
“The first half was not quite what we wanted, to a certain extent,” he said. “Kiddy did the basics well and we were a little bit off it and a bit loose at times.
“We wanted to go straight to C, but you have to do And B first to get there. We had a chat about it at half-time and we were a lot better in the second half. It was job done.”
DK ran in eight tries through Stef Shillingford (two), Charlie Baffour, Tommy Walker, James Ryan, Josh Brown, Callum Nicholls and Sam Vaughan. Vaughan added six conversions.
