West of Scotland 5 Cumnock Under 15 25

Report by Morton Houston

On a glorious day with temperatures in the mid 20s Cumnock arrived at West of Scotland to find out they were playing on Astroturf. As it turned out this was tremendously to their advantage as they fast surface encouraged their off loading and running game.

The game was played in 3 20 minutes sections to allow an extra water break. The first 20 was quite tight although Cumnock seemed to have the best of it. The only score came from Jamie Drummond who latched onto an offload to torpedo over the line. Cumnock went close again thanks to a Rob Drummond break but unfortunately his offload at the line was spilled.

In the second 20 Cumnock played some more great rugby and it was obvious that their forwards were up for the match as they threw themselves into rucks and tackles. Declan Grange, Calum “Mega” Scott and Kevin VanDerLeest all carried the ball really well and fired in tackle after tackle. Evan Smith pulled off one of the tackles of the match as he took a charging second row at the ankles and Mitchell Smith, Matt Montgomery, Samuel Gillon and Jamie Caldwell all rucked and carried well.

Two tries came in this section, the first from the kick off was outrageous, Captain Wallace Findlay caught the kick off, he threw two side steps before running round the West defence and running half the length of the park to score a wonderful try in the corner. The second came from the ever present Jamie Drummond who barrelled threw numerous tackles before scoring.

In the last session Cumnock again looked really strong they refused to allow West to get into the game with great scrambling defence and strong rucking. The next score came from standoff Andy Houston who finished off a sweeping move and scored in the corner. The last score came from sharp play at centre by Rob Drummond who saw an opportunity to intercept and streaked in from the half way line.

Coach Alan Montgomery seemed delighted with the result, “ This was a step forward from last week and the players really committed to a strong performance in very hot conditions. The rucking showed a clear improvement and the players are queuing up to carry the ball. We will need to keep this up as we face more strong opposition over the next few weeks.”

Next week Cumnock under 15s are at home to Marr.