Kettering show strength in depth to win well contested friendly

A showery and blustery Rememberance Sunday saw the U15s visit Wellingborough for a friendly fixture. Kettering chose to give several members of the squad a rest in order to give valuable game time to the whole squad including new players and players returning from injury. It was good to see those not playing attend the game to support their team mates and most importantly a perfectly observed minutes silence from all present.

Despite several players not having played in combination before Kettering made a strong start with Harvey making one of several excellent line breaks. He was tackled well on the home 5m line before Will sent the ball back to Robbie who dived over the line for the first try which he converted with a swerving Brazillian style banana kick in the gusting wind. 0-7.

Wellingborough were penalised from the kick off and a quick tap and go from Kettering put Harvey into space. He was finally caught after a chase by the full back but George showed great support skill to arrive on his shoulder, take the offload and score wide on the left. Robbie made a tough conversion look easy to make the lead 0-14.

The forwards were coming into their own now and did well to steal a Wellingborough line out. Alfie made one of several telling contributions to take the ball up into the home half. From the resulting ruck Ed made a good break feeding Robbie who finished well.Once again Robbie took the extras from a tough angle to make it 0-21. The game was played in thirds of 20 minutes and this brought the first third to an end.

Both teams made changes for the next third which may have contributed to a case of seeming mistaken identity. Tom receiving a yellow card for a high tackle that appeared to have been made by a fellow forward. However he correctly followed the rule that the referee is always right and left the park to reduce Kettering to 14 men for the next 10 minutes. To the credit of the team they kept their heads up and after several good phases of possession Harvey beat two defenders to touch down to the right of the posts - with Robbie's conversion hitting the upright. 0-26.

Shortly afterwards from a well executed turnover the backs got the ball out wide where George was put into a race for the left corner. With seemingly little room he showed the finishing power of Julian Savea to hold off several committed challenges to dot down right in the corner for an unconverted try 0-31.

Wellingborough ended the third strongly with sustained pressure on the Blues line - however the defence kept its shape well and denied any scoring opportunity.

The final third saw more changes from both sides and Wellingborough now showed some powerful running skills and continuity to push into the Kettering half. However Joe R was on hand to intercept a Wellingborough pass, and cap an excellent performance at full back, by racing through to score under the posts. The usually slick support team seemed to have gone AWOL as Robbie was left without a kicking tee and he was unable to drop kick the conversion 0-36.

It was now Wellingborough's turn to show some never say die attitude as they took advantage of several Kettering penalties to roll up the pitch. A strong line break was good enough to beat some tiring tackles to register a well deserved try to the left of the posts which was converted 7-36.

There was still time for Kettering to rack up a number of penalties as the referee repeatedly pinged their loose play in the dying minutes and Wellingborough took advantage of their indiscipline to register a final score to the right of the posts, this time going unconverted. Credit to Will for bravely trying to head the ball away from danger but catching an accidental boot in the process.

Final Score Wellingborough 12 - Kettering 36.

A big thank you is due to Wellingborough for hosting the fixture at short notice and for giving us a good competitive work out. The boys can be pleased with their days work as several players took the opportunity to show what they can do and keep up the standard set at the start of the season for us to play running and attractive rugby whenever possible.

A final word for the fans of the Golden Bacon Butty challenge. We were pleased to see a generous double rasher filling of well done porky goodness although the bun was on the dry side (can you have a long life bun?) according to our chief taster. There were also brown sauce issues as despite some vigorous pumping the bottle refused to render any spicy condiment. Investigations revealed that the tube was too short....insert inappropriate joke here.....although fresh supplies were quickly provided though not of the HP variety!! Overall a fine effort and a creditable 7 out of 10 to put Wellingborough into second place in the season so far - well done chaps.