Blues regret their missed chance of victory against Sandbach.

Sandbach kicked off on their first ever visit to Kettering on a lovely afternoon for playing and watching a game of rugby and after two minutes took the lead with a converted try. The rest of the first half was played with Kettering putting their visitors under constant pressure but one has to point out that the Sandbach defence was outstanding under all this, and two uncharacteristic penalty misses from the usually reliable boot of Joe Daniel didn’t help as neither did the taking of tap penalties five metres from the line against a superbly organised defence. A serious leg injury to Josh Cox, who we all wish for a speedy recovery and an injury to Ed Prowse saw Kettering lose two important front five players for the rest of the game which certainly didn’t help matters.

Tom Bridgeman left the field at half time with a cut head leading to Jack Fleckney making his league debut, Bridgeman returned later having been patched up and immediately had to return to the fray straight away to replace the injured Josh Plowright. The visitors increased their lead six minutes into the second half but the Blues were not to be denied their reward for the effort they were putting in and a great break by George Newman saw him offload to scrum half Tasker Stables who scored under the posts giving Joe Daniel and easy conversion and at 7 – 14 it looked good for a Blues win.

Even a Sandbach penalty didn’t stop the Blues looking for the win but with time drifting away the visitors brought the game to an end with a converted try and a 7 – 24 victory. The Blues now look forward to a trip next week to another club who they have never played before in the shape of Sheffield and look to make it three wins out of three on the road.

The Raj Restaurant ‘Man of the Match’ - George Newman