After last weeks cancelled game due water logged pitches it was good to be back on the road again, two 30 min halves against Oakham, here's how it played out:
First half:
Kettering kick off & we are are straight into the break down. A lot of play in the middle of the field for the first ten minutes, nothing between the sides. Oakham are starting to dominate the breakdown though. We win our scum & Charlie at 8 picks off the back and makes a great break, ball goes out wide & Oran runs in the try, no conversion. Lots more play in the middle of the field, Kettering making some great forward runs, Oakham really dominating the breakdown despite Shea's fantastic attempts to disrupt them. Oakham get the ball out to the winger, he runs through a Kettering player & scores, no conversion. Oakham on the attack again & they score under the posts, Oakham convert. Kettering applying the pressure now & Oakham pass the ball back over their try line, Freddie folds the player in half. We then loan a sub in place of the injured player to enable play to continue. Our scum now & we get penalised for feeding the scrum, penalty to Oakham, ball out to the winger & he scores again, try converted. Kettering restart & the boys really pressuring Oakham now, force the knock, We win the scrum & Cyrus sees the space & runs through to score under the posts, Freddie converts. That's the end of the half.
We talk to the boys about playing as a team as we could hear them blaming each other for the conceded tries, we also talk about attacking the space on the wings, rather than running directly at the opposition. The have played OK but more cohesion is needed.
Second Half:
Kettering attack from the restart, we go through the phases & ball out to Toby to score, no conversion. Oakham restart, Oran catches & runs through the Oakham team to score, attacking the spaces really well, Freddie converts. The boys are really pressuring Oakham at all times now, forcing errors. Oakham line out & out to their centre but Kettering pressuring & winning the breakdowns, Charlie picks off the ruck & goes over to score, Freddie converts. We are under pressure now in our 22, great tackle on their winger who spills the ball, Will H clears up the ball & makes a great break, lovely timed off load to Charlie who makes loads of metres, off load to Fred who gets tackled on their 5m, ball goes forward & scrum to Oakham. Great team play from the boys though as defence turns to attack. The boys are battling it out, again not much between them but the pressure Kettering apply is forcing the errors again. Oakham try to clear their lines with a great high ball, Freddie gathers & puts a beautifully weighted kick back over but to the right corner, Kettering work through the phases, the forwards really turning the screws now, ball back to Freddie who scores under the posts & he converts his own try. Oakham back on the attack, a series of scrums on our 5m, some we win some we loose. Kettering defending hard but Oakham get through to score, no conversion. More play in the middle now, Oakham scrum on the half way, Kettering applying the pressure & forcing the errors again, we secure the ball & get it out to Toby who makes a fantastic sprint for the line to score, no conversion & thats time here at Showground Way.
Tries: Oran 2, Cyrus 1,Toby 2, Freddie 1, Charlie 1. Conversions: Freddie 4
It looked like the boys weren't quite expecting a well organised & hard hitting Oakham to start with. They started to argue amongst themselves & lost a bit of focus. We got out muscled at the break downs in the first half. The boys did eventually wake up & made a great second half effort. I thought the forwards were outstanding today, Max made some great direct runs as did Cyrus, Will H, Toby, Alfie, Dan Sam & Clarke. A good showing from Bryce & Raoul today as well, really stepping up, Luca got to his man every time even if he didn't always succeed in the tackle, he's making great progression. We had a real patched up set of backs who worked really well & played out of their preferred positions today, the scrum halves delivered a lot of clean ball as well. Shea & Joe in the second row worked really hard & the pressure they put Oakham under really worked in our favour. Good to see Harry Jones back on the field as well today. Well done to the boys who stepped up to play for Oakham
.A small thing i picked up on was our ball presentation at the break down, it was very good, something the boys have worked on & i thought it showed today.
In the words of Blink 182 " All the small things". When you put all the small things together & work as a team, you get the rewards. Run with the ball, offload & support. It's as simple as that.