Old Leamingtonians 47 – KC 20
KC travelled to Old Leamingtonians with the team having seven changes from the previous week. They came up against an OL side which looked very sharp and had good handling in the warm-up session, unfortunately for KC they were able to transfer these skills to the game. The first quarter was all OL and in that time they were able to take a 17-0 lead through a penalty and two converted tries before KC seemed to get going. On 28 minutes pressure from KC resulted in them being awarded a penalty in the OL 22 area. KC took a short penalty through the forwards and opened their account with a try by Josh Benjamin.
OL kicked another penalty after a KC transgression. KC came back with a try by Ted Morgan, his clever run with a series of
sidesteps carved the OL defence open. Kain Overton added a conversion to take KC to 20-12 at half-time.
KC came out in the second half with much improved pressure and had at least five minutes in the OL 22 area. Eventually good forward work told and KC possession took them close to the OL line and Jack Shepherd scored under the posts, Kain Overton making the conversion. This took KC to within one point of the OL score. For KC Nathan Ward, Hakeem Hussain were prominent in the forwards, whilst in the backs Chris Pinner put in his usual high work rate.
Somehow it all started to go wrong for KC as they forgot basics and the normally reliable KC defence began to look very leaky. Line outs were poor and in the second half our scrum was pushed off the ball may times. KC had possession close to the OL 22, lost the ball and OL ran through to score. Following this OL had a penalty which they were successful with.
Against the run of play KC came back with some more pressure in the OL 22 and good work in the backs got Ted Morgan over for KCs fourth try, the conversion failed.
OL replied with good pressure, scoring an unconverted try. KC went down to 14 men and OL scored another converted try from a scrum on the KC 22. OL took full advantage of KC heads dropping and with many missed tackles they were allowed to score another converted try under the posts.
A day to forget for KC who never had control of the game and were second best, although they should have restricted OL’s score line.

Bob Davies