NEIL Shillingford admitted his Dudley Kingswinford side ‘didn’t get out of second gear’ despite claiming a bonus point victory away at Sutton Coldfield in the first game of the new season.

DK came out 26-22 winners in the closely fought contest on Saturday afternoon, with the visitors shading the first half 14-12 after both sides scored two tries. Danny Hawkins and Leo Davies the try scorers for DK.

The second half saw DK make a number of changes from the bench, which helped to make an instant impact, with the side extending their lead when Matt Perks was put clean through for the try.

Although Sutton got back into the match, DK supporters breathed a sigh of relief when Stef Shillingford was put in for the bonus point try.

Neil Shillingford, director of rugby, was pleased his side were able to get the bonus point win despite being “rusty” due to a short pre-season schedule.

Shillingford said: “I’m pleased with the bonus point, but it probably wasn’t our best performance. However, it goes to show the strength of our squad when we can pick up wins when not playing to our full potential.

“A few of the players admitted they didn’t get out of second gear and were a bit rusty, mainly because we have limited our pre-season.

“That was a conscious decision we made because we wanted to have a full squad of players, fit and healthy going into the new season. We didn’t want them getting injured in matches with nothing at stake.

“It may take them a few games to get up and running fully, but hopefully the decision will benefit us in the long run.”

DK return to Midlands One West action on Saturday (3pm kick-off) as they host newly-promoted Whitchurch – who beat Droitwich 35-0 at the weekend – at Heathbrook.

Shillingford added: “We know Whitchurch will pose a challenge as they went unbeaten all of last season so we know how strong them are.

“Coming up against one of the promoted teams is always difficult as you don’t know as much about them as your regular opposition.

“But we’ve seen them in the past, so we expect them to be organised and we know they have big strong forwards, but we need to impose our game on them.”