Bournville Head Coach Alex Grove was a happy man after his side produced their best performance away from home in three years to secure an impressive 64-14 victory over Dudley Kingswinford at Heathbrook in Regional One Midlands.
It was Bournville’s first away win of the season and they successfully transferred the fast-paced game they usually play on the artificial pitch at Avery Fields to a heavier surface at Heathbrook to record just their second win on turf in three seasons.
The win also banished the painful memories of Bournville’s previous visit to Heathbrook in December 2023 when they came away empty-handed after DK won 17-3.
“We came here two years ago in National Two in a game we felt we should have won. DK are a team that don’t give up and they didn’t give up that day. From memory they got a late interception try to deny us anything, Grove said.
“We were aware of that, it was lingering in the back of our minds. We knew they wouldn’t give up. It’s a local derby not to mention the fact that a number of our players and CJ Osazuwa were part of DK the last time we played each other.
“So we took it very seriously and we overpowered them across the 80 minutes.
“There was a bit of a lull after half time when there were 20 minutes without any score but we spent most of that 20 minutes in their third so any mistakes we were making we generally weren’t getting penalised for.
“That was the plan, particularly with the strong wind, to spend as much time as we could in the final third, force errors and feed off them.”
The majority of Bourns’ ten tries were team scores with excellent interplay between forwards and backs with improved discipline also denying DK attacking opportunities of their own. Against Newent seven days earlier, Bourns had been heavily punished by the referee for not rolling away in rucks and for a series of high tackles which led to three players being yellow carded.
The coaches addressed both issues in training sessions during the week and the players responded with a highly-disciplined performance which was rewarded with the emphatic win.
“The learning from last week was we had to drop the tackle height. I thought the referee was right last week, we had plenty of warnings and we didn’t adapt. This week we adapt,” Grove said.
“From the first minute we were probably a bit more passive in the tackle but in doing so we were legal so we didn’t let the opposition into the game through our ill-discipline.That made it really hard for DK because we weren’t giving them those easy entries into our half.
“We also produced some nice off-loads and interlinking between forwards and backs – although some of our forwards were playing as backs towards the end so it was hard to tell who was playing there.
“We expressed ourselves and we managed to get our game – fast paced and free-flowing – out there which was really pleasing.”
