Under 10's Saints Tournament

On a fresh but sunny Saturday morning Kettering under 10's headed to the Saints Tournament for the 4 consecutive year. We arrived with a squad of 12 players with Ben Bowman named as captain for the day. We were put In a potentially difficult pool with Old Scouts 1, Olney 1, Buckingham, Banbury and Barkers Butts.

After an intense warm up, we faced Old Scouts, Ketts for once hit the ground running with Ben settling early nerves with a try and then some lovely work by Freddie to release Fraser to score in the corner.
Old Scouts 0 - Kettering 3

Next up were Olney, always well drilled. Kettering stood off a little and could not seem to get hold of the ball resulting in a 2 - 0 defeat.

We followed this with a 0 - 0 draw against Buckingham, it seemed that Kettering were beginning to wobble. After some tough talking from coach Phil Kettering took on Banbury and finally got their complete game together. Good counter rucking from Max, Alfie and Tooku produced lots of good ball for Oran and Freddie to score in a 2 - 0 win.

The last pool game was against Barkers Butts, the DOR had watched them earlier in the morning and saw a very large side with a very direct type of game. But with some tremendous line speed and tackling led by Oran, Christian and Toby they never really got going. Kettering nicked it with some great build up work from Harry Jones to release Ben in the corner. Barkers Butts 0 -Kettering 1.

With the group games done Kettering finished a creditable second place and went onto the next stage to play all the other second placed sides from the other pools.

First up were 'The mighty' Towcester under 10's, not sure why but the lads were fired up for this one ! Kettering started strongly with Toby breaking several tackles to open the scoring, led by Freddie and Max Kettering's defence was rock solid and with Alex tidying up any loose ball it lead to a pleasing 3 - 0 victory.

Next up were Ampthill 1, the eventual winners of the pool and the best team we played. Going 2 - 0 down and facing a heavy defeat Kettering dug deep and Freddie found space to pull one back. With Kettering pressing hard to level it the seven minute matches meant they were beaten by the clock.

With parents entering mild hypothermia and Simon, Tooku and Toby leaving for karate grading, Kettering finished on a high with a win against Ampthill 2. Excellent support play from Thomas and Fraser produced 3 great try's. With the lads finally using the width of the pitch to create the space, that win placed Kettering in second place in the final pool.

All in all a solid performance from the lads a really good mornings rugby.