Tight Cup game goes to the wire

Kesteven Travelled to Stamford for the second round of the NLD Shield having already beaten Southwell to reach this stage. Three changes to team from the week before resulted in Captain Tom Webster, Fly-half Olly Wood and Second Row James Cowley being unavailable. Coming into the team was the ever green Martin Parker, David Tweddle and the returning Dan Turner. The conditions were overcast and a little windy! However the pitch confused Kesteven a little as Stamford had cut every inch of their ground to a perfect short turf, except for the pitch itself, which resembled a trip across the Serengeti.

After a shorter than usual warm up the team got on with what they knew would be a closely fought game to the final minute. In the early moments of the game both teams fired warning shots with Stamford looking controlled and tidy with their phase play. When Kesteven started to get their defence reacting as they talked about they began to shut Stamford’s possession down and put the home team out of their stride. However it was Stamford that opened the scoring in the 9th minute with a try in the corner that was unconverted. (5-0).

The game was a tight affair with both teams mainly cancelling each other out, but the one big difference on the day was the scrum. Kesteven’s forwards dominated Stamford’s 8 and at times had Stamford running backwards. Stamford should be given credit for the quick hooker’s strike and calm number 8 that managed to deal with the constantly retreating scrum on most occasions. It was from one such scrum that Kesteven turned the ball over and allowed number 8 Dan Turner to scuttle over in the 27th minute. Whittaker converted to make the score 5-7 to Kesteven.

With their first try on the board Kesteven found their feet and started to find holes in the home team’s defence as well as keeping up both scrum dominance and a strong driving lineout. Kesteven were awarded a penalty on the 34th minute inside the Stamford 22, K’s ran the ball hard and eventually Scott Odams went over for a try, again converted by Whittaker. (5-14).

Stamford then came back at Kesteven Strongly finding some overload opportunities in the midfield; one such break put Kesteven under extreme pressure. However Kesteven were able to turn the ball over and clear their lines right down the centre of the pitch to the awaiting Stamford Full-Back. The last man for Stamford appeared to knock the ball on as he dropped it clearly in front of him. Such a blatant knock on led to half of the Kesteven team pausing their chase, the ref however seemed to have missed the Knock on and allowed play to continue. With the scraggy chasing line now all over the place the Stamford full-back picked them off and the home team scored in the opposite corner to their first. The conversion was missed (10-14).

Stamford then hit Kesteven with a volley by creeping in for another try from a line-out just before half time to take the half time score 15-14 to Stamford. Kesteven were calm at half-time and knew that they just needed to get some possession and the game would swing their way again. The first 20 minutes of the second half were much like the first half with both teams playing good rugby and cancelling each other out. Both kickers missed penalty shots during this period to leave the score unchanged at 15-14 to Stamford.

As the second half wore on Kesteven got more and more confused that their utter scrum dominance didn’t lead to more sanction for the home team, repeated infringements were ignored time after time despite Stamford killing good trying scoring positions with their foul play in the scrummage. Kesteven were at last awarded a penalty on the 61st minute that they kicked deep into Stamford territory. From the resulting lineout Kesteven drove hard and Tuner flopped over the line to get his second try of the match. The conversion was missed to leave the score at 15-19.

The constant toing and froing continued with Stamford replicating the Kesteven try with a pushover try of their own on the 64th minute, this time they converted to make the score 22-19. The black army supporters were not worried as they believed that with the dominance of the scrumming reaching such farcical levels more penalties and field position would surely give Kesteven their next opportunity. It was at one such scrum on the 75th minute the Kesteven thought they had the penalty they deserved, with Stamford’s pack scattered on the floor following another strong scrummage the ref blew his whistle and then mysteriously awarded Stamford a penalty for Kesteven infringing at the scrum….

The Stamford kicker finished the game off with a long distance penalty to make the final score 25-19. Kesteven kept on pushing to the end to find the final try but time beat them in the end. Kesteven will learn to valuable lessons from this defeat and will be working hard not to let such comfortable platforms go to waste in the future. But the overriding emotion should be positive, they put on a fantastic performance from 1-18 against the league leaders from the league above.

Kesteven: Odams, Sheardown, Purvis, Tweddle, Osbourne, Woolerton, Armstrong, Turner, Draper, Parker, Miles, Goodrich, Berry, Taylor, Whittaker: Payne, Cooper.