Match Report Kesteven under 16s Vs Nott’s Moderns
Nick Hardy-Gillings

Sunday 12th September 2021

A Squad of 21 and Fingers Riley braved the roadworks, Nott’s Forest Football supporters (BOOO) and mad traffic to play and support Kesteven Under 16s for the start of the 2021/22 season.

Arriving to James’s top tunes blaring out of changing room 1.... the boys were in the mood to take no prisoners.
Having established what rules we were playing and adopting a four quarter format the boys began their warm up. Unfortunately Nott’s Moderns hooker had gone down with dose of something bad, leaving them with 14 players and unfortunately uncontested scrums. In the spirit of rugby we offered to lend players as and when they needed them...Oscar H-G went to play the first 20 mins for them recognising that whoever he played for would it would give him valuable match time.

Looking at the opposition we opted for Harry, Oscar E, Sam, Ronan, Charlie S and Bobby to start on the bench coming on as impact players rotating in and out during the predicted 4 quarters with Oscar H-G when he returned.

Kick Off

The first 5 mins was ferocious with some great patterns of play from the adopted Pod System with Strong carries from Harvey “The boxer” Sentence and Charlie “Blaster” Bailey as the boys got rid of the rustiness from the summer and limited playing time over the past few years.
And then the onslaught began...

Two penetrating pod attacks led to Jack “The Slicer” Hall switching play with an audible, Toby “Gunslinger” Watchorn rifled a bullet pass to Jack who intern fed Luka “The sledgehammer” whose direct running fed Josh “Hands!” Brahua, to take it up into the opposition 22. The ensuing ruck was cleared and the ball fed to Luka who charged forward and with deft 1,2 interplay and a dummy run from “lightning” Theo fed Ollie “The Jackler” for his first Kesteven try...the flood gates were open.

Moderns Kicked off straight into Ben “ El Capitano” Taylor hands who, supported by his forwards running the pods, cleared out the opposition fed the ball to Jack then to Archie “The indestructible” Tagg who’d cut a line from fullback straight through the moderns defence. With a host of supporting players he opted to off load to jack who went in under the posts. 10 Mins in and we were two trys up.

Kick off again.....more of the same except Jack went on his own just managing to creep over for his second score. Try number 3.
Try 4 a minute later was created by the forwards with Shawn “The demolisher” pumping his legs in the tackle with support all around him managed to “place” the ball in Josh’s hands who not to be outdone cruised in from the halfway line.

Here we go again...Try number 5, the opposition starting to tire, leaving opportunistic spaces for the Kesteven high powered back line to work their magic the ball found itself in “Speed of light” Bobby’s hands after a crunching tackle and turnover from Harry “I slice you in half” who stepped two players and feed the ball back inside..score to Jack. 20 mins played time for a water break and rotate some more players.
With Oscar H-G back after his stint with Moderns it was Oscar E’s turn to put in some crunching hits against his own team!......... and run the ball back – fair play, that’s what we want to see whatever team you play for.

Try as they might Moderns were finding it difficult to get near our 22 and a steal from Ollie led to Archie jinking his way through the flailing Moderns defence for the score.

With 5 mins to play before Half time a penalty for a high tackle on Charlie “Smasher Stephenson” after some marauding interplay between Ronan “The Man bun” led to a kick to the corner and a lineout 5 meters from there line. Henry “Bulls eye” Hardy launched a beautiful looping throw for Monty “ Safe hands” to pluck the ball from the air, land and set up a perfect driving maul for a well worked forwards try... El Capitano tried to claim it but he had the easy job of hiding behind the forwards so it’s automatically awarded to the pack  Try 6 ........half time.

Due to the half game rule and the RFU law surrounding stopping a match when a team reaches 50 points it was becoming clear that some of the boys needed more game time ASAP. It was Lucky Jack “The Slicer” had left his kicking boots at home or we’d have pretty much finished the game before half time.

The back line was shuffled around and we picked up from where we had left off. Harvey having gone to the opposition for his stint.
Jack called pod twice which enabled the forwards to work the ball infield ....it was on...Monty fed Jack who took it to the line, Josh ran hard from outside centre to in pulling in their cover defence as Jack swiftly move the ball out of the back right to left straight into Archie’s hands who squared the full back and launched Dom “ Beep Beep the road runner” to fly into the corner untouched for another “first” .... Kesteven try.

It was looking bad for the opposition as they lost a player to injury so Ollie offered to play for them...(I suspect it was because one more try and it would be over). Ollie and Harvey battling hard for Moderns (on their own it looked like) looked up to see Sam “The Side Stepper” use all his footballing skills to dribble the ball forward from a Kesteven failed backs move on the Moderns 10 meter line all the way to touchdown the ball for the decisive score on 40mins. The Game was over.

The boys played well against an under strength Moderns side ...some great passages of play, lots to work on but we will enjoy the win for now as there are stiffer tests to come.

See you all Wednesday