STOURBRIDGE’S director of rugby Neil Mitchell refused to get carried away following his side’s 71-17 National Two North slaughtering of Dudley Kingswinford.
Despite romping to an 11 try spree, hard-to-please Mitchell said: “You shouldn’t get too flattered by the scoreline, because I expected to win by a wide margin. I was more critical of our own play and the 17 points we conceded.
“It was a difficult game for us in the fact you don’t train to play in games like that.
“I was more concerned with the fact we were stripped of the ball two or three times and the fact we were turned over on seven or eight occasions.
“I know 71 points is quite a tally and there were some fantastic tries, but we have to keep our feet on the ground. It was a five point win, that’s it.”
The result was never in doubt from the moment scrum-half Pete White wriggled his way over for a third minute try.
Just 15 minutes later, Stour had the bonus point in the bag following further tries from centres Ben Barkley and recent DK recruit Stefan Shillingford plus a fourth from left wing Jamie Hearn.
DKs only response during this period was a drop goal from fly-half Gareth Bown.
Stour stand-off Gary Dipple soon made it five tries before DK scrum-half Jordan Brookes responded with an opportunist try of his own, picking up at the base of a maul and spotting a gap in the Stour defence to race clear and score under the posts for Bown to convert.
A second Shillingford try put Stour back in the ascendency by half-time with a lead of 36-10.
The tries kept coming in the second half, skipper Robbie Hurrell, full back Matt Farrington and right wing Nathan Bressington all added their names to list.
Then replacements Jordan Page and Danny Thompson got into the try-scoring act, although there was one moment of defiance, DK’s second row Matt Perks forcing his way over for Bown to convert.
Hearn kicked a total of eight conversions, bringing his total tally to 21.
Stour entertain Birmingham and Solihull this Saturday at Stourton Park with James Rodley and Tom Jarvis set to return.
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