Today was Kettering U14s first home game of the season. The team had some fantastic preparation and build up for the day.

First off, some early bird coaches had got to site early to set up the pitch. However, the trailer with flag poles and post protectors was locked! We eventually accessed the unit and the pitch set up went ahead.

The players arrived and made their way to Changing Room 1, home to KRFC’s Frist team. The players having the opportunity to use a facility that also doubles up as a bit of motivation and a goal for their future rugby careers.

Dwayne Paul, from Limitless Training Club, kindly offered to take the squad for a warm up and activation session indoors at his new-generation gym that concentrated on functional movement and some resistance to get the boys game ready. THANK YOU DWAYNE, much appreciated.

We had Tristan (Young Match Official) taking the lead as our Game Manager/Referee. Both sides had limited substitutes available and opted for 3 x 20 minute intervals as a format.

This was Old Scouts first game of the season but from the kick off you wouldn’t have known. They were competitive and physical and had a great tackling defence.

The first third saw two sides testing and probing each other. Kettering’s defence looking solid and pushing towards the opposition to deny them time. The midfield defence was good and so was the wide covering defence.

As the game progressed our forwards looked comfortable at scrum time and won a high number of own ruck ball (this was a problem intermittently last season). Kettering scoring through line breaks, interceptions and pace out wide.

Latterly Kettering started to rumble through the middle and with the forwards, powering through tackles rather than running around the outside.

As the game went into the third section of play Kettering started to string some really good joined up team plays together. One score was a combination of backs and forwards passing and offloading intelligently.

Overall, Kettering retained the good stuff from the previous week, continuity was good. We lost very little of our own ball at rucks and in general contact. Decision making in the contact area was good, working out when to offload or not. Next steps should be to apply this intelligence when we are defending, we put in a lot of work to counter ruck but sometimes forget to take the ball!

Set piece was solid, Luis S, will I’m sure, analyse this and feed back to the forwards on Wednesday. Although the score line was flattering I was more impressed with the defence. The ‘blue line’ looked to make steps forward rather than allow the opposition easy territory. I don’t remember a missed tackle, every player looked confident defending and that makes a big difference

It was brilliant to see both sides enjoy some hot food after the game and spend time in the clubhouse. Fantastic from Old Scouts to stay, enjoy a drink even got involved with the post-game Joker Poker!

Next week, we are away at Hinckley. See you all there….