Kesteven beat Grimsby

Saturday 16th January 2016

Midlands League 3 East North

Kesteven 20 Grimsby 8

The early morning frost lifted in time for this match to go ahead. The pitch was firm in places as Grimsby kicked off. The match got off to a whirlwind start with Grimsby opening the scoring after just 4 minutes with a penalty. The lead lasted for just a minute as Kesteven took control of the restart. Turner got possession and with a deft flick he offloaded to Tom Miles for the young wing to use his strength to run in from the 22. The conversion failed. Grimsby then got back in the Kesteven half and missed with two straightforward penalties - and the game was barely 10 minutes old. Kesteven at last got a grip on the match with some good work by the pack. Purvis Pert and Turner were prominent but all the possession just did not produce the score. 10 minutes from half time though saw Kesteven add to their lead. A penalty 10 metres out was taken quickly by Sheardown and he found Purvis on his elbow to take the pass and crash over for the second try. The conversion again failed but Kesteven had a useful 10 - 3 lead at the break.

Grimsby started the second half at a bang. They gathered the restart kick and got the ball out wide to their left wing. He ran strongly to score in the corner to narrow the gap to two points. The Kesteven reaction was good and when Grimsby were caught offside in their 22 Whittaker stepped up to take the three points on offer. Taylor came on to replace Sayle. Grimsby then took the game to Kesteven and spent a good spell testing the home defence. Turner was sent to the sin bin when the referee lost patience with the number of penalties being conceded by Kesteven. During his absence Grimsby hammered at the Kesteven line but the home defence held firm and eventually relieved the siege. Tom Webster made a welcome return to the side as a replacement for Pert and he was intent on showing that his absence through injury had led to a release of some pent up frustration. Turner returned with 18 minutes left and had a decisive impact on the remainder of the match. He made one fine run up the touchline then a further break. His off lead looked to have set up a try but the referee judged the final pass to be forward. From the resulting scrum Grimsby were penalised for not straight and Turner took a quick tap to go over for the try as the Grimsby defence slept. Whittaker added the conversion to complete the scoring. There was still time for Grimsby to try to recover but all they had to show was a missed penalty at the end while Kesteven were unfortunate to lose Dent to a serious leg injury.

Team was A Whittaker; T Miles, A Draper, J Goodrich, O Hughes; M Parker, O Wood; A Osborne, R Sheardown, G Purvis, D Tweddle, W Pert, M Dent, M Sayle. D Turner Replacements K Taylor, T Webster, C Dingley. This week Kesteven travel to Sleaford for their return fixture.