DIRECTOR of rugby Neil Shillingford still harbours hopes of resurgent Dudley Kingswinford pushing for the top two after surviving a late scare at Stoke.

DK registered a fourth straight Midlands One West victory at Hartwell Lane on Saturday, seeing through a 14-12 success despite a late flurry from the hosts.

Early converted tries from Danny Hawkins and Arran Hudson put the visitors well and truly in the driving seat but having opted to push for a try-scoring bonus point, Stoke remained in contention.

Having closed teh gap to two points, DK were relieved when a quick break was halted by a forward pass in the dying stages with Shillingford set to reconsider his side's tactics in future.

"We had the option to kick around 18 points but chose to go for the corner and push for the bonus point. Perhaps we might have changed our strategy midway through the second half because it could have bitten us on the backside," said Shillingford.

"To a certain extent, we got away with it. If you look at the statistics and possession, we deserved to win but had they pinched it at the last, it would have been down to us.

"We will have to have a rethink. In recent games, we had to take as many points as we could but now we are back up there in the mix, we can look at it slightly differently.

"The easiest way to get points is to score four tries to start with but we still need to be aware and when games are going a certain way, we may need to think differently. Maybe we should have done that earlier on Saturday but we will learn from that."

DK will look to continue their recent form with a home clash against Stratford on Saturday (2.15).

"Stratford have five points on us so it is a big game," added Shillingford. "We need to target the five points to nick another position in the league standings.

"The teams in second and third slipped up at the weekend. It is hard to call on any given week in this division, the likes of Crewe & Nantwich are near the bottom but are capable of pinching wins now and again.

"As we go into the second half of the season, there is still a lot to play for."

Shillingford anticipates being able to select from a full squad.