On the opening weekend of the Rugby World Cup, where Japan made history and Argentina gave the All Blacks a fright for 60 minutes. How would the Kettering U14s perform in their first League fixture of the new season away to ONs?

Playing on the ONs first team pitch with its change in elevation, ONs won the toss and elected to play up the hill first. Kettering started the proceedings with a high hanging kick which the forwards stormed towards. The Blues quickly won the resulting ruck and our back line was unleashed only for them to be stopped 5 yards out with a scrum to ONS awarded. In our previous encounter ONs dominated the scrum, but the Blues have been working hard over the summer of their technique and looked confident as the referee set the scrum.

The forwards dominated the scrum taking it against the head, the ON backs drifted to cover the pending wide ball leaving the inside open, which Thomas Church dived through to score under the posts. A quick charge at the conversion by ONs brought a charge down however, 0-5 Kettering, game on!

The resulting kick from ONs fell short giving the Blues the scrum which we again took control at, allowing the back line time to move the ball deep into the ONs half, where the Kettering forwards joined the party and Joe Steele crashed through the ONs defence to take the score to 0-10 Kettering.

A unlucky bounce and some strong chasing by ONs saw Kettering attempt to clear their lines, only for the kick to be charged down into the hands of the ONs backs who had a easy run in to even things up a little. 5-10 Kettering.

However what followed was a joy to behold as Kettering boys literally rained down on the ONs. We won every scrum and the backs ran hard with some sublime lines and support which gave Tommy Sims a hat trick of tries and Joe Steele another after powering through the entire ONs back line to blitz the score to 5-34 at half time.

In the second half ONs had the slope and raised their game, playing with more urgency and denying the Blues the ball at the rucks. Quick hands from the ONs backs brought just rewards with two tries but it was too little too late as Kettering camped in the ONs 22 going over the line, only to knock on in the tackle. However this just delayed the inevitable as Tommy Sims outpaced the ONs cover defence for the last try of the day. Final score 17-41 Kettering.

Every Blues player on the field today stood up to be counted and played some fantastic rugby for the full 50 minutes. TXM Recruit player of the week goes to Joe Steele for a monster performance both at the break down and in the loose.