Great Team Effort

KC 43 Burntwood 13
This was a game that was re-arranged after an earlier fixture was lost to icy hard ground,
luckily the Marlpool Lane ground drains very quickly and another cancellation was not
needed after heavy storms earlier in the week.
KC opened the scoring after 10 minutes with a break up the middle by Tom Dalton who
converted his own try. Burntwood replied with a penalty.
Both sides were playing positive rugby and notable was Morgan Maxwell who made several
bullocking runs. KC’s next score came from an unconverted try by John Barratt. The next try
came from Tom Dalton who started down the wing, passed inside to Nico Bond and looped
round to gather the return pass and score.
In the last 10 minutes of the half Burntwood came back into the game and with powerful
forwards had pressure on the KC line for at least five minutes, however the KC defence held
firm. There was a melee with neither side getting good ball until Burntwood won the ball on
the KC 22 and scored an unconverted try to leave the score at 17-8 at halftime.
Early in the second half Tom Dalton broke from the halfway line and with a clever change of
pace left several defenders in his wake to score and covert his try. Tom Kerrigan and Simon
Clarke were prominent in the forwards. Clarke made a break from inside the KC 22 and
chipped into the Burntwood 22 and with a terrific sprint followed up his chip to pin down A
strong forward move gave Jack Barratt a try converted by Dalton; Jack had a good game in
the rare position for him in the back row and later when restored to the front row to replace
an injury. As the second half continued KC were working well and beginning to dominate,
the next score came from forward pressure and Henry Humphrey was the man to score. The
last KC score came from Henry Reid who made a good run down the wing from the 22 and
then looped behind the defence scattering defenders as he went. Dalton made his fourth
conversion and deservedly was made Man of the Match.
Throughout the game KC forwards held their own in both the line-outs and set scrums. KC
did give away a succession of penalties, part of the learning experience in game
management will be to understand what the referee is penalising and then avoiding that
issue.
This was a game with many changes and the KC team should be very proud of the way they
combined youth and experience to earn a good win. One of the strengths of the KC game
this season has been their defence with positive tackling and therefore it was good to see,
that in a much-changed side, this continued .