U15 Team Continues its Rebuilding

Cumnock welcomed their visitors from Inverclyde to a sunny Broomfield for round 5 of Scottish Rugby’s Youth Conferences. The ‘Nock U15 side is going through a building phase this season and, for the second week running, they were able to turn out a full team.

From the start it was clear that the visitors were going to take the game to the hosts with strong running and slick handling for the off. Play was very much in the Cumnock half as they were pinned back with wave after wave of attack. It seemed only a matter of time until the Cumnock defences were breached and in quick succession they shipped two converted scores. This actually steadied the ship for Cumnock and little by little they started to get a foothold in the game. Territorial advantage became more even, the Cumnock defence began to limit the visitors’ opportunities and from an initial period where the Greenock scrum was pulverising Cumnock parity was gained here also. Cumnock then managed to work a score through a prolonged period of possession the ball worked its way towards Ruairidh Airlie who fended off a number of tackles to dot down under the posts, conversion by Liam Murray. Greenock responded almost immediately with an unconverted score however late in the half it was Airlie again taking a pop from a tapped penalty who crashed over under the posts, Kerr Robson converting to make the score 14-19 at the break.

The second half started pretty much as the first with to and fro possession dotted with scores however it was Cumnock who were always playing catch up. What was starting to work was Cumnock’s defence, despite shipping tries theses score were all out wide and nothing was getting through the middle. So although Greenock managed 4 tries in the second half conversions were limited. From the Cumnock point of view it was Airlie on the scoresheet again with two further tries one of which was converted by Kerr. As the final whistle sounded and the dust settled it was Greenock who took the points with a score of 26-41.

Cumnock Coach Thomas Bowditch “This was another day of improvements for the team and we are very happy with the effort shown in todays game. Where we need to improve will come from work on the training paddock and it is vital that we see every player at training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Coach Harry Reilly added “The raw material for a solid team is here, over that past few weeks our losses have not come because of teams that are better than us in terms of work rate or skill but by teams that are better organised on the pitch. This is a training ground issue for us and the more players who make it along to training the more organised we will become and in turn the results will happen.”

Team List :- Ruairidh Airlie, Arun Cameron-Cooper, Luke Cameron-Cooper, Keiran Makin, Kerr Robson, Andrew Rodger, Evan Smith, Cameron Smith, Iain Stobbs, Reece Morrison, Lewis Douglas, Logan Middleton, Caleb Askin, Jamie Kennedy, Liam Murray

The team has seen a number of new players joining the team over that past couple of weeks which is excellent news and bodes well for the season. The Cumnock RFC U15 side is still keen to recruit players so if you are interested come along to training on Tuesdays and Thursday for 1800 start at Cumnock Rugby Club or call 01290 420292 for more information.
Next game in the conference for the U15 team is Sunday 2nd October away to Dalziel with a 1400 KO.