Kesteven 20 - Amber Valley 0
The match at Kesteven survived the sudden snow flurry and frost to go ahead on pitch 3; the 1st team pitch had not thawed out sufficiently.
Kesteven were able to field almost the same XV again with Martyn Parker coming in at fly half and Dan Turner moving out to centre.
K's started out with intent to take the game to Amber Valley early on and took the lead when Turner popped over an early penalty. This paved the way for a period of heavy pressure which tested the discipline of the visitors. They conceded a number of penalties and had a player in the sin bin after 20 minutes for a high tackle.
Kesteven took advantage of this and punished Amber Valley with two quick fire tries. First Dom Brister destroyed an Amber Vally scrum to break away. He found Mark Dent on his elbow inside to speed over for the try. Turner converted and Valley were penalised in the aftermath. Turner's kick from half way took play deep into the Valley 22 and from the lineout the ball spun out from Parker to Turner who took the ball at the angle to go over atthe posts for his try. His conversion took the score to 17 - 0, and it remained there till half time.
Kesteven turned round at the break to to play uphill and continued to take the game to Valley. Despite all thier pressure they were unable to add to their score until 10 minutes from the end when Turner kicked his second penalty. Dent, Phil Jordan and Smith all came close, Smith in particular had a storming run being stopped yards short and Windsor was bundled into touch a yard out. In all this Amber Valley just could not get into the Kesteven half indeed they did not look like scoring. 20 - 0 was an emphatic scoreline - but it could and should have been more.
There were no failures in the Kesteven team which was very well marshalled by fly half Martyn Parker. Dent kept up a steady stream of quick ball and was always trying to play the game at pace. Turner had his usual strong game, taking his try very well and also kicking to great effect by stretching the Valley defence. Windsor and the Jordan brothers put in a huge amount of work in attack, whileDixon had some memorable moemnts, particularly his low line tackle!.
In the pack the front row turned over the Valley scrum. Paton was a rock and Hayward was as lively as usual. Elsewhere in the pack Brister won al ot of loose ball while Smith's contribution will be remembered for his his storming run in the second half. Wooloerton tackled his heart out as always.
This win takes Kesteven up to 4th in the league and next week they have another home game against Mellish. On this form they need fear no one!
Team was P Dixon; R Windsor, P Jordan, D Turner, R Jordan; M Parke, M Dent;, P Bennett, D Hayward, M Paton, N Clarke, W Pert, D Brister, T Woolerton, G Smith Reps R Dolan, S Odams, B Betts
