Ardrossan/Garnock U16 17 Cumnock U16 39

Report by Ian Park

Cumnock were looking to continue their great start to the season in this rearranged fixture but knew beforehand that they would be up against a much larger pack of forwards. The game started brightly under the lights with A/G moving steadily up the park only for Cumnock to win the first turnover and quickly work the ball through the hands to feed Dale West who out run the entire opposition backs to cross the line first for a 5-0 lead. Unfortunately West had to retire injured just after this score but not to be outdone his replacement on the left wing Conner Hill then scored a similar try to make it 10-0.
A/G brought a score back through pace of their own to make it 10-5 but the final score of the half fell again to Cumnock with Bradley Smith crossing the line for his first of the night to close the half 15-5.
Through much of the first half the Cumnock forwards were a match for the bigger A/G pack, feeding the backs and allowing the breaks but in the second A/G’s bigger pack took hold winning most of the set pieces but the Nocks forwards never gave up. Their perseverance continued to build a platform for Cumnock to play a good running game that’s came to be expected.
Another burst forward by wing Alex Smith resulted in Calum Park scoring the first points of the half to extend the lead 20-5. Again A/G pushed their way into the Nock half but another turnover gave Cumnock the ball 10m from their own line but they didn’t panic and played the ball through hands until Bradley Smith found the gap and ran through the defence, in under the posts from 80m out. The easier kick allowed Park to pick up the extra points. A few minutes later from the same position Smith then surpassed his last score by this time kicking forward and picking the ball on the run to score again, Park again added the points to lead 34-5.
All this time A/G were not doing anything wrong and continued to run at Cumnock, who until then had stood firm in defence as they have done all season, but a couple of wrong decisions then allowed A/G to quickly score twice to bring the game back to 34-17. However, Cumnock were not finished, nor was Smith who crashed over from a shorter distance this time to complete the scoring at full time 39-17 in Cumnock’s favour.
Cumnock are now 5 from 5 in the league, all down to hard work and team work with the team playing good rugby, while the backs scored all the points this time, in the last game the forwards took command to show how much of team effort this season so far has been. The coaches were again pleased with the performance especially with how the forwards dealt with losing the breakdown for the first time this season but still managed to present enough ball to the backs who exploited their pace to win the game.
Team: M McColm, R McLaren, J Smith, T Grierson, S Faulds, G Gilliland, D McCulloch, M Anderson, A Birrell, G Balmer, C Hill, B Smith, C Park, D West, L Andrew, A Smith, T Bell, R McCrone, R Donnelly, T Wallace, L Naismith, S Houston, J Watt