Kettering 4 - 1 St Neots

Kettering this weekend saw Kettering play St Neots 3's who on the first game of the season saw a competitive 1-1 draw away. Kettering aimed for a big win wanting to go into the break on a high.

The game started very well for kettering showing their dominant distribution of the ball through the ranks of players from the back line to the forwards. Kettering got off to a positive start with instant chances just going wide. It wasnt long till trusty goal scorer George York Rifled one into the goal to put kettering 1-0 up.

The early conceced goal for St Neots seemed to wake them up and some good end to end hockey prevailed as a very competitive game began to open up. Kettering defensively held well and managed to see away a few opposition short corners nicely. A few near misses with one ever so close deflection from geoff elliot but half time came with a 1-0 lead. Half time chat was mostly praise but the added incentive of we need more goals if we wanted to win this.

Kettering came out the blocks hard and within a few minutes of the half starting a short corner had been won with some great play from george york who game by game is embedding himself as a quality centre forward for the club. A little switch up in the short corner saw adam duell fire one to put kettering 2-0 up. Not long after St Neots had some well worked play after applying the pressure on Ketterings defense for a while and scored a nice goal which matt coe so nearly stopped with an impressive dive.

A few more chances from various players narrowly missing the goal or some good goal keeping kept the scoreline down as players such as Ned wilson, jack bridges and geoff elliot took further chances. George York scored the next goal from under the keepers feet as he struggled to clear his lines and poked it through.

Some sustained pressure from St Neots came in waves but left their lines broken for some simple passes through to the attacking line to go 2 vs 1 with the goal keeper. Jack bridges nicely dragged the keeper right to slip an nice ball to Ricky Payne who slammed it in for good measure. Some more fast ball play with skipper Clarke crashing in some balls for the usual post man to tap in but York simply was not there. Maybe he didnt want another hat trick.

Man of the match went to Adam Duell for playing a solid roll and distributing the ball well and defensively holding his own. All in all everyone played a fantastic game and go into the christmas break with a victory.