BROMSGROVE finished their preparations for the season with a 31-12 friendly loss at Hinckley on Saturday.

Most of the match was evenly-contested apart from the last session, where the Boars’ peripheral squad players were up against the visitors’ strongest side and struggled.

The clash was divded into three 35-minute periods, and after the first, it was 12-12 before Hinckley stepped up a gear.

One or two of last year’s squad have moved on, the most notable departure being the irrepressible Nigel Burrows who has moved to Moseley.

They will also start the season with fitness doubts about a few players including skipper Tom Warren, number eight Phil Horton and fly-half Ben Copson.

That said there were a number of new recruits who performed well in the trial specifically Tak Osaki at stand-off, Charlie Jones in the centre, Ben Harper at full-back and Dave Hughes at blind-side flanker.

The Boars recruitment hasn’t finished and while the first month of the season might prove difficult as the players gel, coaches Ross Baxter and Duncan Roke will be aiming to forge a formidable unit.

It was an opportunity for senior players such as John Critchlow, James Lloyd Jones and Steve Blackburn to inspire the newer and younger players and raise the tempo on and off the pitch.

While the players and coaches have been working hard on the training pitches, a lot of work has been done around the club including new drainage and match standard lights on the former training pitch.

This work will be followed up in January with similar drainage on the main pitch, which will give the club two top quality floodlit pitches by the start of the 2013-14 season.