Kettering 19 Nuneaton 72

It was a case of Déjà Vu for the Nuns on Saturday as they racked up another big win, this time against 5th placed Kettering scoring 12 tries in a 72-19 crushing. For 70 minutes they dominated their hosts with scores coming from Travis Bennett-Allcock four tries, three for Martin Wood, and two each for Harry Beverley and Toby Dearden plus a penalty try. Lucas Brindley didn’t quite having his kicking sights set but did manage five conversions.

After another week of poor weather the pitch was a little heavy and as the game went on started to cut up but the Nuns didn’t let this slow them down as they ran in 6 tries in either half.

The Nuns took a 2nd minute lead after going through some phases in the host 22m and Bennett-Allcock was the first scorer, 0-5.
Next was Wood with a pick from a ruck 20m out to ghost through unchallenged on 10 minutes, 0-10.

In the 13th minute, after a cross field kick looked like Bennett-Allcock was about to collect the ball the Kettering full back pulled him back by his collar resulting in a penalty try and yellow card taking the score to 0-17.

Kettering did then rally and managed to score from close range in the corner after an initial penalty allowed them to kick to the corner and set up a catch and drive, 5-17 after 18mins.

The Nuns weren’t in the mood to let the hosts come back though and then from their own period of pressure deep in the host 22m Wood crossed again from close range on 21mins.

Then from a centre field scrum 20m out the backs executed a set play well to allow Beverley to cross in the corner to take the score to 5-27 after 27 minutes.

The final act of the half was Bennett-Allcocks second try with the Nuns again pressurising the host’s line and moving the ball to the edge for the try leaving the score 5-32 on the whistle, with another conversion just going wide.

The second half started like the first with the Nuns crossing for early points. Wood rounded off his hat trick when at the back off a successful catch and drive on 42 minutes and then Dearden got his first with a 10m burst after some good continuity on 44 minutes. With his sights reset Brindley added both conversions taking the score to 5-46.

Bennett-Allcock added two more tries in the 48th and 60th minutes with Brindley adding the extras and then on 62mins Dearden crossed for his second with a conversing taking the score to 5-67.

The Nuns last score came in the 67th minute when Beverley picked up a loose ball and ran in untouched from 30m. Brindley was unsuccessful with the kick but the score was 5-72.

The hosts did rally and got themselves two late tries in the 75th and then 80th minute to leave the final score at 19-72.

This was another strong showing from the squad and even with a couple of changes to personnel the depth of the squad was on show. With Northampton Old Scouts drawing the Nuns now moved to second in the table with three rounds left, tied with Lutterworth on 84 points.

Head Coach Huw Thomas thoughts “The lads can be really proud of that performance. Too back up what we did against Peterborough against 5th in the league was very positive. Again, we showed that we were dangerous in a number of aspects of the game and our execution was very high. It was also encouraging to see young Harry Healy in his first outing of the season having been in New Zealand developing, it adds more quality and options to the squad.”

1 James Redman 2 Toby Dearden 3 Ben Dawes 4 Nick Walton 5 Tom Aherne 6 Rudi Reid 7 George Wallis 8 Martin Wood 9 Tom Smitham 10 Lucas Brindley 11 Travis Bennett-Allcock 12 Tom Eales 13 Ryan Preston 14 Harry Beverley 15 Joe Wilson; 16 Ben Holmes 17 James Lloyd 18 Harry Healy