DUDLEY Kingswinford joint head coach Neil Shillingford admits his side’s promotion hopes may be over after a narrow loss to Burton.

The Heathbrook outfit went down 9-6 to the league leaders after a tight defensive struggle, leaving them very much on the outside peering in on the Midlands One West promotion race.

DK sit fifth, seven points behind the leaders and four points behind second placed Bournville who have a game in hand.

While Shillingford and fellow head coach Mark Lockley are refusing to give up hope, it now seems only a surprising run of results will get them back in the hunt.

Shillingford said: “I think the teams at the top of the division are the ones who will be fighting it out for promotion.

“I cannot see anyone else beating them, Burton and Bournville have already played each other twice, while we have only Bournville to play.

“Obviously its not mathematically out of the question and maybe I’m being a little disrespectful to the other sides in the division.

“But I think it’s going to take maybe a few shocks for us to be in with a chance.”

Saturday’s game was a bruising, hard fought encounter which ended up being decided by the odd one in five first half penalties.

DK made seven changes, two of them positional, with a welcome return for Adam Blackwood at No8 following a lengthy spell out through injury.

Nick Adams kicked both of the home side’s penalties but despite having a couple of openings in the second half DK were unable to capitalise.

Shillingford said he was pleased with the overall performance.

He said: “For the neutral it was a really good game of rugby, two sides who really went for it from the start with some great defensive play.

“I don’t think we could have done much more to win the game.

“It’s a shame we could not execute the chances we had.

“Not being able to train did not help us, they had played last week and looked a bit sharper when it mattered.”

DK will look to get straight back to winning ways when they travel to Camp Hill this Saturday (kick-off 2.15pm)