Market Rasen have turned themselves into a very difficult team to beat at home and so this proved for the Blues who failed to put in the type of performance they have shown at home on numerous occasions this season.

Both sides made hard work of ball retention throughout the game, which made continuity a real problem, and with them both suffering injuries during the match, Rasen up front and the Blues in the backs, the quality of rugby fell short of what was expected from the two sides.

The Blues took the lead on 20 minutes when Josh Plowright took advantage of the huge dead ball area to chip over the defence and Joe Daniel won the race for the touchdown. Daniel converted to give the Blues a 7 point lead.

Prior to this Market Rasen had come close with a catch and drive and Daniel had just missed with a long range penalty attempt. During those early exchanges Plowright had been injured and soon after the try he had to retire from the field of play to be replaced by Ryan Conyard.

Market Rasen hit back immediately and scored a try wide out, which went unconverted to leave Kettering with a slender 2 point lead.

Then with 35 minutes gone, a pivotal moment in the game occurred when Joe Newman, who had for some unknown reason, clearly upset the referee, was very harshly yellow carded for being offside, on only the 4th penalty the Blues had conceded.

Market Rasen took full advantage scoring a try either side of the break whilst Newman was off the field.

On his return, a second pivotal moment came when the hosts lost a 2nd front row player through injury and with no further replacements the referee deemed that the rest of the game be played with uncontested scrums.

Whether this benefited the Blues or not remains unanswered, but what, according to the league rules should have happened, is that Rasen should have been made to remove a player and play the rest of the match with 14 players. This was not enforced by the referee and so both sides continued with a full compliment.

Shortly after this, Jordan Butlin had to leave the field injured, which led to a further re-shuffling of the Blues backs.

This didn't stop Daniel reducing the arrears to 5 points with a penalty on 47 minutes, but did see an increasingly, and unnecessarily, desperate Blues making to many errors and poor decisions.

Both sides had opportunities which were squandered, before the home side kicked a penalty to give them an all important 8 point lead on 77 minutes.

The Blues fought hard and were rewarded with James Taylor, unconverted try wide out in the last minute, which at least secured a losing bonus point for all their endeavours.

Both sides could have claims to have deserved the win in this game, and it would have been no injustice if the Blues had sneaked it.

However, both camps will be looking to improve their ball retention in the coming weeks, and probably their decision making at crucial times, which could make all the difference in a very closely fought game such as this one.

Next week the Blues entertain Newark in the first of the return fixtures as the season enters it's 2nd half, looking to reverse the result from the first Saturday when Newark ran out comfortable winners.