Blues make up for lost time

The Blues set their stall out early, and were soon on top and pressing for the opening score. It was no surprise when this came after 8 minutes, when fine handling led to Tom Connolly scoring on the left. Bruce Keir added the conversion to give the home side a 7 point lead. Keir later added to this with a penalty, as the Blues relentless pressure in defence led to mistakes from their Leicestershire opposition. 10-0 after 23 minutes.
Connolly was denied his second try when a great handling move saw the winger heading for the corner, only for the Lutterworth left wing to make a superb last gasp tackle in the left corner. However, the Blues winger soon made up for it with a burst through the flailing defence to score and extend the lead to 15-0, as Keir's difficult coversion attempt drifted wide.
Then, as the half drew to a close, another phase of excellent handling saw Connolly again stopped short, but this time he was able to offload to the supporting Ed Drake Lee for the youngsters first league try for the Blues first team. Again, the conversion was short from wide out, and the home side led 20-0 at the break.
Lutterworth came out for the 2nd half in determined fashion and adopted a far more direct approach to the game. This led to a much tighter affair and the Blues defence showed great character in denying the visitors any scoring chances. However, the contest was much more of a mid-field battle as both sides struggled to take control.
The stalemate was finally broken on the hour, when, for the umpteenth time, some wonderful inter passing in the backs involving a trio of teenagers, Connolly, Drake-Lee and Henri Styles, saw the latter give a delightful scoring pass to Drake-Lee for his second of the game. Keir, this time with the strong breeze in his favour, converted from wide out to stretch the lead to 27-0, and see the Blues secure a 4 try bonus point.
Back came Lutterworth and after a 5 minute seige on the Blues line, Kettering seemed to have weathered the storm when they secured a penalty. However, the resulting line-out saw the ball turned over and led to further pressure by the determined visitors, who were eventually rewarded for their concerted efforts with a converted try.
However, this only seemed to revitalise the home side and Connolly crossed for his hat-trick try, which was again wide out and Keirs effort was short. Then Captain, and Man of the Match, George Newman made a searing break to set up up Connolly for his 4th try of the game, which shows how well Newman must have played for him not to get the MoM vote! Again, Keir must have been cursing his teammates as they gave him the most difficult of conversion challenges, which he just failed. 37-7.
Then, straight from the kick off, Alex Bayley caugth the ball in mid-air, landed, burst through the defence and then side-stepped the Lutterworth full-back for the final score, much to the delight of the Blues supporters and players, in particular Keir, who had a simple conversion which he duly placed between the posts to leave the final score:

Kettering 44 - 7 Lutterworth.

A really positive team performance by the Blues with many players putting in great shifts. Next week sees the side playing another Leicestershire side, but this time away from home against Melton Mowbray.

RAJ Man of the Match: George Newman.