DUDLEY Kingswinford RFC’s roller coaster season continued with defeat at Burton.

Their away form is giving real cause for concern with three defeats and while the DK front five provided Burton with a lot to think about, they never came to grips with the overall invention and tenacity of a team making their intentions very clear from the kick off.

In Darryl Banton at scrum-half and Tom Bartram at Centre, they possess two real playmakers and they tormented DK all afternoon with their darting runs and fine kicking.

Last week Bartram slotted 10 from 12 kicks and today bagged another 16 points. ce.

DK made only one change from last week, Tut Asi Pito coming in for Chris Gledhill with the latter reverting to the subs bench and Matt Taylor and Dan Shakespeare joining him.

The visitors kicked off on a beautiful sunny afternoon and made the initial gains before conceding a penalty which Burton centre Tom Bartram booted a fully 50 metres downfield.

Despite taking the first of five Burton line outs against the throw, DK still managed to hand the initiative back to Burton who gathered the loose ball and the right winger Dan Archer fed Tom Bartlam who deftly chipped the defence and gathered the ball to touch down by the posts.

Bartlam converted his own score.

Fletcher pulled back three points with a penalty after nine minutes to make the score 7-3 but five minutes later a mix up in the DK defence let Burton fly-half Ian Gilmour slice them open and touch down to the right of the posts, for once the trusty boot of Bartram missing the conversion.

On 23 minutes things got worse as Burton’s forwards mauled their way towards the DK line and Craig Dutton sauntered round the flank to touch down, Bartram duly converting to make the score 19-3.

DK finally cliked into gear in the 32nd minute as a neat break eventually saw Ian Langford touch down and the defecit was narrowed again before half-time, as James Jeffersion went over to reduce Dudley’s arrears to six points.

The second half saw Burton grind out the win. Bartram kicked a penalty to make it 22-13 on 57 minutes, before Dutton touched down with ten minutes to go, extending the lead out to 16 points.

Lawrence Batty scored again for the home side on 74 minutes, while Robbie Jones grabbed a late consolation for the visitors.