1st XV Match Report

On a bright sunny afternoon at OA league leaders Aberdeenshire took to the field before a reasonable crowd of home support who soon realised that the boys were going to be up against it as the northeners had a big pack and useful looking back line.

The visitors kicked downhill towards Crow Road in the first half and put our band up against it for the first 10 minutes exerting pressure deep into our 22. Slightly against the run of play we picked up a penalty duly kicked by Davy Whyte and 3 - 0 to the home side. Scores then levelled at 3 - 3 with a penalty award for offside decision at a ruck.

After 23 minutes Aberdeenshire went down to 14 men due to a sin binning. Could the home team reverse the trend and take advantage? Unfortunately not as the penalty kick missed touch and allowed the visitors to storm down to our 22 and exert pressure on the home defence. We then gave away a penalty from which the visiting centre partnership scored under the posts to make it 3 - 10 at half time.

The second half was much the same with our guys mopping up pressure and having the odd run down field.......touchline support feared the worst. 2 penalties kicked by Davy boy took the deficit to 9 - 15, at which point it looked as if Aberdeenshire might run away with the game.

By jove were we wrong as the home side fought their way back into the game, showing spirit and determination lacking in previous weeks. Rory Love broke away down field and fed to his opposite wing Joe " must be one of the tallest" Macari who took his chance well to score in the corner. Davy put the conversion over - good time to go up for the first time in the game.

8 minutes to go, would anyone on the touchline survive the nail biting finish? Yes! The team stuck at it and held out for a well earned 4 points.

Our display was most encouraging, however, victories like this one are great but so too are bonus points - a target for the rest of the season!

Davy Whyte man of the match, others worth mention are Pete Broadbent, McT and our fearless captain (are kicks not meant to go forward!). Team as below

VP

D Whyte J Macari C Breckenridge D Hoffman R Love J Shannon A Shedden A Forbes G Reid C McLay A Drummond E Thow P Broadbent A McTavish G Hogg

This article was posted on 19-Oct-2009, 19:54 by Hugh Barrow.