Hinckley AFC’s penultimate home game of the season sees the visit of the United Counties Premier South champions St Neots Town to Kirkby Road on Saturday at 3pm.
Hinckley’s defeat at Easington last week meant their play-off hopes are all but mathematically over, as the side packed with youth team players couldn’t back up their excellent win the week before.
But Hinckley have a proud home record this season – one that only three teams in the division can better – and will hope that can continue against the champions.
Having been without so many players over the past few weeks through injury, there is, at last, some relief for Joe Conneely on that front after Adam Barber and Harry Walker-Donovan both came through training this week, while Chandler Pegg is being assessed.
The opposition
St Neots’ 4-1 win at Rugby Borough last week was a remarkable 11th in a row, and means they can’t be caught at the top.
Since a shock 5-2 defeat to local rivals Eynesbury Rovers on Boxing Day, Cameron Mawer’s side haven’t dropped a single point in the league with 11 consecutive victories, and only conceding four goals in that time.
They have scored the most goals and conceded the fewest, including letting in just 12 goals in their 16 away games.
Key to that success has been having hugely consistent personnel all season – eight of their squad have started 40 or more matches this term, including leading scorer Rhys Thorpe, whose 29 goals have helped propel them back to step four. Kieran Barnes has 20, Michael Amaeshike and Connor Furlong both have 16.
From the dressing room
“Congratulations to St Neots, to Cam and his staff and the players. They’re a fantastic football club, we got treated really well when we went over there in November. We had a good game with them, went toe-to-toe and just fell short on the day. We’ll respect them, treat them properly and give them what they deserve.
“They’ve been a brilliant team, they’ve kept a core together and their front four is the best in the league by a country mile. We know what it’s like to win a league, the hangover afterwards can be bad. We were ugly last year after we secured it, so it can be tough. Hopefully that is the case for them as well! But we won’t expect it, we’ll plan for the best St Neots possible and that’ll be a really difficult game.”
Joe Conneely
Key information
Kirkby Road has a large, free on-site car park, and we have both cash and card turnstiles available.
Adults: £7 members, £8 non-members
Concessions: £5 members, £6 non-members
Under 16s: £2 non-members, junior members go FREE
