Cumnock (S1) 76 Dalziel (S1) 36

Report by Michael Harkin

Both teams meet for the second time this year with Cumnock having already beaten their opponents comfortably away from home some 3 months earlier. Dalziel clearly looked up for the challenge and set on giving a good account of themselves as they were very vocal and focused during the warm up.

The referee for the day called the 2 captains for the toss off and it was decided 3 periods of 20 minutes would be played giving both sets of coaching staff a chance to make numerous changes and swaps. Dalziel were to receive the Cumnock Kick off first, which Luke Donald took, hoisting the ball long and high into the Dalziel pack which they gathered comfortably and took on the offensive. Some great first up tackling from the likes of William,Aiden,Nathan and co set straight any doubt amoungst the Dalziel boys that cumnock had any intention of approaching the game in a light hearted manor on reflection of the first game.As a result of these thumping tackles Dalziel found it very difficult to Re-cycle the ball and became prone to some slack handling leading up to 3 scrums on the trot. This was a comfortable phase of the game and as much as the dalziel boys tried, the strength and technique of the cumnock boys forwards proved to be to strong for them, resulting in the first 3 scrums going cumnocks way and allowing for the platform to be set for Cumnock's 2 star backs to get a spoil of running in the following 3 tries in the first 8 mins Donald 2 (Tries) Young 1 Try). The one criticisim of cumnocks play throughout this half was the persistence to make difficult decisions and playing rugby in the wrong areas of the park when their was clear overlaps and miss matches all over the field of play. One positive was that the tackling duties and scramble defence was working a treat and nullified Dalziel at every opportunity keeping the score board firmly stuck at Nil. The final out come of the first 20 resulted in cumnock scoring a massive 39 points to Nil.

In the second 20 it was decided to swap some personnel from cumnock over to Dalziel to even things up a bit and make things more competitive. Right from the off dalziel responded with 2 quick try's through the good work of their own back line which were finished off by both Donald and Young respectively. Gathered under the posts Cumnock now found themselves in a strange position of being behind in this 20. Moaning and finger pointing was plentiful but to their credit they grew into the period again with some fantastic ball carrying/offloading and tackling and were rewarded when young scrum half angus and william scrambled over the line for the next 2 tries to cumnock bringing things back to level pegging. This half was much more competitive than the first 20 and finished with dalziel scoring an additional try by one of their own players after some good work between the forwards and backs.

For the final 20, players were changed again and dalziel received some of cumnocks big hitters and ball carrier s which in fairness the cumnock forwards and backs did well to stand up to. Some slack play between the Cumnock backs allowed for dalziel to get some easy ball which they didn't hesitate to accept and make inwards roads to cumnocks try line, But for some fantastic tackling from man of the match winger Jack... dalziel can feel hard done by at not adding to their scores. Wing forward Tam was having a fantastic game in the wing forward position and his 3 x 30mtr or so breaks lead to him dabbing down for 2 try's of his own and setting one of his team mates up for the simplest task of dotting the ball down after some great running again. Dalziel did score 1 final try which came from the large and imposing number 6 who took 2nd ball at kick off and burst through the tired tackles of some of the cumnock forwards who had given so much to the game. Final score

Cumnock 76 Dalziel 36

All in all another great result for Cumnock and keeps the momentum going for the forthcoming match's Anyone who has been a regular this season can see the hard work and commitment of the boys which is reflected in the results so far. Their will be tougher days ahead for this Cumnock team but on the whole they are coming along nicley. All are expected to attend training at Auchinleck Astro turf at 6.30 thursday nights along with anyone else interested in attending or playing rugby.