Kettering go all green.

It’s only fair to say that what I assume was my DoD award was harshly awarded and says more about the concentration and attention levels of our players in the pre match tactics chit chat. How times have changed when it’s “phones away and look at the white board”. I’m sure when I started it was more get the players who are having a fag in here to listen to what we might do. It was fairly obvious to me that by saying we should move the ball from where the green pen was, to where it wasn’t clearly wasn’t a reference to a green pen on the pitch. I was merely using the location of the pen as a kinaesthetic aid to help our understanding. Peasants.

Anyway, moving on. Peterborough 5s were younger than usual. A couple of old stagers who we’ve played against for years but other than that fairly fresh faced. They’ve also won 4 games and sit nearer the top than one would expect. Apparently a second team forward bagged a few goals early in the season for the, but for the first 5 minutes they looked quite lively and another hard afternoon beckoned.However, following last week’s game v Camb Uni the hosts knew that they had an intense game in them. And so it came to pass. Mark Hawkins had a couple of decent chances in the first half. CoP had a couple of short corners that were comfortably dealt with.
The return of Jacques Lourens into midfield gave the forwards some direction and Kettering lead in both possession and territory but unfortunately not on the scoreboard.
Half time char was around being strong in possession and leading for the ball. It didn’t take long for the wise words to pay off as one minute into the second half Kettering won a short corner and Darren Brookes fired the ball home. Chances came and went, Ethan Roberts had two very presentable chances and Jacques will be disappointed not to have buried a good chance. It took skipper Paul Donnelly to double the lead. An interception deep in CoP territory saw the ball fall to Donnelly whose shot squeezed in via the keeper’s foot. I’m still working out what our sweeper was doing in their D. I’m guessing he was sauntering back from a short corner. Brookes pulled a fetlock and Kettering rearranged their formation to accommodate the gap he left. A petulant Peterborough midfielder took a five minute breather but the hosts couldn’t extend their lead and they were duly pegged back with a scrappy far post goal with 8 mins to go. Having bossed the second half a draw would have been a travesty and Donnelly put the game to bed with four to go when he deflected a Lourens short corner past the non existent post man.
For a team near the bottom the was a very comfortable win.
Next week is a bit of a six pointer at Bourne but there was lots of positivity after the game and Kettering go into the game buoyed by moving up a place in the league.