On Saturday 16 September 2017 Stewartry Under 16 travelled to Strathaven to play in a Mitsubishi Motors Under 16 West Conference league match.
The match kicked off at 1PM and Stewartry were soon on the attack with a fine run by Glen Duke who was held up by the Strathaven defence over the line. The resulting scrum provided Glen with a pick up and drive over the line for the first score. After a good run by Fraser Forsyth Strathaven won the resulting line out and drove to the corner where they scored a try. Strathaven missed conversion. This was possibly the best thing to happen to Stewartry as immediately after the kick off Glen picked and drove from a scrum offloading to Archie Nicholson who fed the backs with Pacey Ho getting tackled near the line. A Strathaven error followed by a Stewartry error led to a scrum near the posts. Glen picked and drove under the posts for another fine score. At this time the Stewartry scrum was becoming very dominant and winning own ball comfortably. This resulted in Archie feeding Fraser Forsyth who broke a tackle allowing Peter Young to loop round on the outside to score easily in the corner. As with the scrum Stewartry line out was impressive with Paddy Traynor throwing accurately and Finn Teller plucking the ball early out of the air before feeding Archie at scrum half. A line out on the Strathaven 22 metre line resulted in Finn sweeping the ball of the top feeding Archie who fed Lochy (Lochlan Spence) who sprinted up the touchline to score in the corner.After the restart Strathaven attacked but were repelled by fine aggressive tackling and rucking which allowed Stewartry to turn over the ball. Peter saw space behind the Strathaven backs and kicked it deep whereby Fraser Gibson won the chase picked up the ball, resisted the tacklers to score near the posts.A short time later a good handling move allowed Murray Connor to make good ground up the wing until he was well tackled in too touch by Strathaven backs. Finn Bailie replaced Murray and was soon in action making a ferocious tackled to thwart the Strathaven winger.
Halftime soon followed with the score 31-5
The second half saw a couple of changes with Rory Sinclair changing with Aaron Murray who had a fine game at blindside wing forward.
The second started with a great tackle by Fin Telfer which resulted Strathaven offending allowing a penalty for Stewartry. Lochy tapped and went but was held up short before releasing to Ryan Cochrane who scored at the posts. After the restart Stewartry forwards soon won the ball and fed the backline with pace making good ground before being stopped a few yards short of the line. Stewartry recycled the ball allowing Fin Telfer to make a good running line to score a try. The Stewartry forwards were now very dominant winning line out and ruck ball with few problems. A good kick by Peter, from his own half allowed the backs to chase and recycle the ball. This allowed Glen to pick up and drive under then posts for a well earned hatrick of tries. The ball was re started by Strathaven but didn’t go 10 meters. the resulting scrum allowed Peter to show good feet and feed Fraser Forsyth who offloaded to the strong running Fraser Gibson who scored near the posts for his second try. After the restart Murray Ross, who had moved to full back from the wing, gathered the ball in his own half and made a fantastic run down the line being chased by Strathaven backs resulting in a great try near the posts for his second try. The Stewartry mounted one more attack near the line but fine resolute defence by Strathaven denied Stewartry a score. The referee blew the whistle for the end the game.
Final score – Stewartry 66 V Strathaven 5. (8 tries converted)
There were many fine performances all through the team. The Scrummage was very solid with the Aaron Murray and Zac Hunter performing great in their different roles. The line out worked superbly with only one minor aberration. The forwards rucking was a vast improvement from last week with not so many many committing to the ruck. The backs ran some very good lines and offloaded on many occasions creating spaces and tries. Peter Young kicked superbly after his 2 early misses. Overall a very good clinical team performance but still can improve.
