Cumnock Under 15 Match Report

Cumnock Under 15s 17 Uddingston/WD 10

Cumnock pulled off a gutsy win in the West of Scotland Cup as they played a joint Uddingston/ Waysiders Drumpelier team. Playing on 4G at Troon to beat the weather a weakened Cumnock outfit dug in deep and overcame powerful opponents.

The 15s got off to a slow start as their unforced errors allowed Uddy to continually press their line. Uddingston tried to put all their play through big powerful forwards but this limited approach was undone through strong Cumnock defence. Eventually Cumnock started to string some plays together and broke out for Jamie Drummond to score a try converted by Owen Young. Cumnock them pressed on to score a second unconverted try, again by Drummond, and looked to be establishing a comfortable lead. Uddy had other ideas and they turned enormous pressure into an uncoverted score to make it 12 -5 to Cumnock at half time.

In the second half Cumnock absorbed even more pressure and brave tackling most notably by John McIlwain, Rob Drummond and Adam Watt kept them at bay. Strong breaks by Jock Welsh, Jamie Caldwell and Andy Houston went close before Drummond finished off a sweeping Cumnock move by running over the Uddy standoff and scoring his hat trick. Looking comfortable at 17-5 all Cumnock had to do was contain Uddy for the last 15 minutes. This turned out to be much more difficult than it should have been and through giving away numerous penalties Cumnock spent this entire period almost exclusively defending in their 22. The defensive effort was huge but 10 minutes from time Uddy scored again but luckily missed the conversion from in front of the posts.

The last 10 minutes would have strained any heart but Cumnock’s never say die spirit enabled them to hold on to post a great win in the cup.

Coach Alan Montgomery said after the game, “ This was a tremendous effort especially as we had some key players missing. The effort from the boys was enormous and although we can play better rugby we couldn’t play with any more commitment. We need to work on conceding fewer penalties so that we can relieve the defensive pressure. I am very proud and pleased of the effort our players put in as we now progress to the cup quarter finals next week.”