Blues lose terrific scrape with the 'Ath'!

The Blues will now have to probably win all their remaining games if they are to be in the promotion places come April.

Kettering kicked off away from the clubhouse, but it was the Ath who got quickly into their stride and were putting Kettering under pressure.

They camped in the Kettering 22 for 10 minutes, before eventually the pressure was too much and the Ath blind side scored from a charge down to take a 5-0 lead, the conversion was missed.

On 17 minutes Kettering started to apply some pressure and came away with a penalty from Shane Ling (The Blues 2nd Best Kicker) to make it 5-3 to Ath.

The rest of the first half was pretty even, Kettering dominating in the scrum, with the Ath Hooker being spoken to on a number of occasions and penalised at least 4 times in the first half, but the referee must have left his cards at home.

With a few minutes remaining in the half, Kettering took the lead with another penalty from Shane Ling to make it 6-5 to Kettering.

On the stroke of half time, Kettering maintained the pressure and attacking up the right hand side of the pitch, it was David Bannister who made the telling break to score a try, converted by Shame Ling to make it 13-5 to Kettering at half time.

The half time talk was about how Ath would come hard at Kettering and they didn't disappoint, within minutes they were attacking the Kettering 22. But a loose pass fell into the hands of Damian Conrad who ran in from 90 minutes to score the try, converted by Shane Ling to make it 20-5.

Ath came back hard, and put Kettering under an immense amount of pressure and pulled the score back with a converted try to 20-12. This seemed to wake Kettering up, who now had Ath pinned on their 5 metre line.

They relaxed on a scrum which was turned over, and Ath started to clear there lines. Then the turning point of the game. At number 8 picked and started to drive away from his own line to his 22, and was then held up with the referee clearly calling that it was a maul.

The maul collapsed and Kettering were penalised for not rolling away. With the new laws, this was obviously a mistake by the referee. Some indiscipline saw the referee march Kettering back 10 yards. From here, Ath kicked the ball to the Kettering 22, and with forward momentum, scored another try to make it 20-19.

Ath now on the front foot started to make further in roads into Kettering's half, and managed to score another converted try, this time with a suspected knock on missed by the referee, to make it 26-20.

The game played out for the last 10-15 minutes with both teams attacking were they could, in these muddy conditions. Kettering disappointed at losing this game, having gone 20-5 up.

RAJ Man of the Match: Matt Neild