Kesteven Under 10’s travelled to Bingham for the first time on another chilly Sunday morning, in good spirits and with a full squad ready to continue their winning ways. From the kick off it was clear that Bingham were going to provide a more physical challenge than K’s had faced in recent times, strong tackles from the home side were the stand out feature of the first few minutes. Kesteven were quickly forced into two substitutions for minor injuries to Gilbert and Zaccai, but nevertheless they soon found some forward momentum and Max popped a nice little offload out of a tackle for Connor Smith to race in for the first score. With handling errors high for both teams Kesteven found themselves the beneficiary after a series of scrums, Connor made some good ground with ball in hand and finally gave it to Ollie, who finished with aplomb.

Having put a bit of distance on the score the boys now had their tails up, unfortunately this did not lead to much cohesive teamwork, but after some more strong defence from Bingham Hugo took matters into his own hands from a free pass to bash his way over the line. Now three scores behind Bingham suddenly fired into life, assisted by some lacklustre tackling from Kesteven, and raced down the pitch with some strong evasive running to score two quick tries of their own. Bingham were now in the ascendency and even after ringing the changes Kesteven were having difficulty finding the fire in their defence, and swiftly pulled ahead with some more strong running adding another two tries. Archie came to the rescue with a nice run and offload for Connor to grab a second and restore parity before half time.

The second half began in the same fashion as the first ended, with Bingham seemingly on top with some strong running to score the first of the half. Conceding again early in the half seemed to finally kick K’s into life and the defence started to find its feet, this allowed them to get possession back and a nice series of runs and offloads from Anthony and David eventually ended with Sam running in for a classic forwards score taking two defenders with him. At last the game had kicked into a proper contest, hard tackles flying in from both sides inevitably led to a couple of high tackles with Bingham benefitting close to the line for another score. This was to be the last time Kesteven would let them in. Brilliant cover tackles from Riley, Gilbert and Dylan to prevent any further concessions, then Lucas Dean got the team back up the pitch with his now characteristic powerful running. Zaccai found a great support line with Ollie creating the space for him to cross the white wash and get K’s level once more, recreating the partnership that had worked so well at Stamford last week. Another strong tackle from Hugo caused Bingham to lose the ball in their own half, the loose ball was picked up by Tyler and he raced home with a powerful run to put the team back in front. There were now plenty of tired bodies and legs on the field, but K’s were not going to be denied a final score to finish off the day. Teamwork finally beginning to rear its head saw some great running and well timed passes to create space for Zaccai to run in his second of the day and the last of the game. Final score Bingham 6 - 8 Kesteven

After some early sleepiness, the team showed some great resilience in the face of a strong Bingham side, they eventually found their feet to come out on top of what was a highly competitive match and extend their record to six wins and no defeats in the under 10 rules era.

Player of the match went to Ollie for his strong running and tackles, and seeming to be involved in everything good when he was on the pitch.

By Coach Stephen Smith,

Team: Anthony, Archie, Connor, David, Dylan, Gilbert, Hugo, Lucas, Max, Ollie , Riley, Sam, Tyler, Zaccai

Special Thanks to the team unofficial photographer, Bex, who once again caught many incredible captures