JUNIOR RUGBY Peterborough U17 12 St Ives U17 43 A FINE performance from St Ives saw them run out convincing winners at Peterborough. Invited as guests of the Peterborough club president, Saints hit the ground running and Ben Carter soon found room to scor

JUNIOR RUGBY

Peterborough U17 12 St Ives U17 43

A FINE performance from St Ives saw them run out convincing winners at Peterborough.

Invited as guests of the Peterborough club president, Saints hit the ground running and Ben Carter soon found room to score in the corner before Dan Breed converted superbly.

Tom Brown - the St Ives man-of-the-match - was a rock in defence as the home side tried to reply, and Andrew Punter performed the steal of the century as he ripped the ball from a try-bound Peterborough forward.

After 20 minutes of sustained home pressure, St Ives broke out and Carter bagged his second, again converted by Breed.

Back came Peterborough who managed a try on half-time which they added to at the start of the second period. Fighting back, St Ives managed to steal a scrum, with Ali Geddes robbing the scrum half and releasing Breed to score.

The best try of the match came when Brown fielded a high ball, made great ground and the forwards were immediately in support. Quick ball transference and support play saw David Baker finally break through and score.

St Ives were now in control and further tries, including two for Matt Nice, capped a fine win.

Meanwhile, St Ives U14s completed a very successful end of season tour of the Midlands to round off their best-ever campaign.

RAF Cosford hosted the first match against the Spartans from Sutton Coldfield and

from the kick-off the St Ives forwards - ably led by Nathan Dewar - put pressure on the Spartans at the breakdown. This resulted in most of the first half being played in Spartan territory.

The first try was scored by James Hunter and this was followed by a fine run by Darius Kwong, who scored under the posts. Jack Topham, who was bossing the midfield at fly half, kicked the conversion.

The last play of the first half saw some slack defending by the St Ives backs which allowed the Spartans inside centre to score.

Coming out for the second half, St Ives quickly added to their score through Hunter and Nathan Dewar, which was converted by Topham.

A late try by the Spartans left the final score at 24-14 in favour of St Ives.

Day two saw St Ives face Redditch on a pitch with a big slope which captain Topham decided to take advantage of in the first half.

The try of the first half was a catch from the restart by Topham, who ran the length of the pitch to score in the corner.

Further tries were scored by Dewar, Will Mandley and Kwong, with two conversions and a penalty from Topham.

Valiant tackling by Redditch prevented more tries, but as the game wore on St Ives took control of the match and scores from Harry Martin, Kwong and Olli Watts gave Saints a 46-5 win.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 junior rugby players packed Priory Park for St Neots Mini Rugby Club's annual festival of rugby.

The 33rd staging of the event attracted 11 visiting clubs with players from U7-U12 taking part in the tournaments.

For St Neots, the U7 and U10 sides made finals, the U9s, U11s and U12s made the semi-finals with a spirited pool performance at U8 - the U12s were also awarded the fair play award at their age group.