Dudley Kingswinford hoping for a twist as they lose top spot

DK suffered a last-gasp 20-17 defeat at home to Lichfield on Saturday, a result that saw their visitors move above them into pole position. Just one point separates the sides, with third-placed Kenilworth three behind DK.

And while he was disappointed by the loss, Shillingford believes the battle for glory will go right down to the wire.

“We can’t dwell on the defeat and we have to get back at it at Ludlow on Saturday,” said Shillingford. “They have put a few good results together and it will be a tough match.

“The weather forecast isn’t great and the pitch may not be conducive to the type of rugby we want to play. But we have got to adapt to the conditions.

“We are in a similar situation to last season, where we need to go on an unbeaten run and keep picking up the bonus points.

“The losing bonus point means we are only one point behind Lichfield and they have a tough game at Hereford on Saturday, and they still have to play Kenilworth. I think it will go down to the last week of the season and that we will have to get something from our game at Whitchurch.”

Shillingford believes his side missed an opportunity to open up a handy gap over Lichfield

“To lose to the very last kick of the game is obviously really disappointing, but it’s game we should have won,” he said. “We should have nailed it, especially during the first half. We had chances, but didn’t take them.

“We didn’t have the best of the referee, but you can’t come out of a game blaming the referee when you haven’t been clinical enough. If we had been more clinical in certain areas, especially the breakdown, then he wouldn’t have had as many decisions to make.

“We had two tries disallowed where we felt we had grounded the ball, but the referee said he couldn’t see if that was the case. But we had other opportunities to score.”

Kieron Williams, Danny Hawkins and Joe Dunn grabbed DK’s tries on Saturday, but Shillingford was left frustrated by his side not sticking to their gameplan.

“We have worked on certain things during training over the last few months and we emphasised those points before the game,” he said. “But for whatever reason that went out of the window on a Saturday. The gameplan was working because we were creating opportunities, we just weren’t taking them. But then a few of the players decided to go off-script and when that happens the whole machine goes down.”

Stourbridge Lions produced a superb performance to beat Stoke 51-12. The Lions will aim to follow that up when they host Worcester under the lights on Friday night (7.30pm). Old Halesonians went down 15-11 at Sutton Coldfield, while Kidderminster lost 43-8 at Hereford.