DUDLEY Kingswinford handed league leaders Newport their first defeat of the season with an impressive showing at Heathbrook.

DK made it a hat-trick of victories with a 46-26 success last Saturday to move up to seventh in Midlands One West.

Director of rugby Neil Shillingford was delighted with the result.

He said: "It was a great performance from us and we showed exactly what we are capable of.

"We did start slowly and found ourselves behind again but then started to play our own game.

"The cup game against them a few weeks before was a big positive for us. Even though we lost it gave everyone the belief that we could get something from the game.

"The players were very focused before hand and no one was fearing them.

"We approached the game in the right way and didn't get ahead of ourselves. Our goal was to get four tries to take a bonus point from them, so going behind didn't change our mindset.

"Once we got those tries then the confidence was there for us carry that forward. We also had a big impact from the bench.

"We are now learning to manage games better as well and though I've criticised us in the past I thought that was a big positive. We played some clever rugby at the end and kept the ball in the middle of the park."

Shillingford has now challenged his players to reproduce the same levels of performance at Stoke this Saturday.

"We must now take that result and performance to Stoke," he said. "If we do that and get the result then it will really push us up towards the top places in this division and get us on a roll.

"The good problem for us now is that we have set the bar high. The challenge is to reach those levels consistently every week."