A good first match v Northampton !

This afternoon Rugby's juniors had a well contested match against the juniors from Northampton. Each player played two games and it was arranged that everyone played against a different opponent in the two games and also played with White and Black.

 The first round was absolutely level ending at 4-4. Shivi Ravi maintained a material and clock advantage to win against Harry Horner and William Kendall stayed clear of Ethan Rowes traps to secure a win. Kai Cockerell, Parth Joshi, Kieren Roberts, Victor Moody were overcome by Elliot Reed, Jay Rihal, Ethan Majers and Bryony Marsh. But the scores were levelled by a good win from Leo Johnson against Aaron Rihal and Jonathan Paynes Queen sacrifice to beat George Horner.

 In the second round Northampton overcame Rugby 5.5 to 2.5 and the score looked as though it was going to be worse than that at one stage! The most spectacular game was probably Leo (v Jay) where he found himself a rook down in less than 10 moves! But successfully fought back with a strong attack to level up the material and then took over. Jonathon's game (v Elliott) looked desperate most of the time but he kept hanging on - even with his King at the wrong end of the board - to persuade his opponent to agree a draw! Shivi defended excellently to ward off a very strong attack and then eventually gave checkmate as her opponent was trying hard for checkmate himself. All the other games were lost through one or two hasty moves though Kai, Parth and Kieren had good chances.

 Well done Northampton and for Rugby I think it shows how well we have come as a club. We hope to visit Northampton - possibly in January - for a return match.