Linlithgow 2nd XV 36 – 17 Kirkcaldy 2nd XV
Saturday 12th October 2024
Match Report by Phil Findlater
After Boroughmuir calling off our league match on the Thursday evening a hastily, and effectively achieved, replacement team was arranged with opponents of Kirkcaldy 2nds, whose Club play in National League Division 2, providing the opposition at Lower Mains Park, and who were currently sitting top of their own league table.
We had a healthy home squad of 20 gathered who took advantage of a dry warm up in the ITC as we saw “4 seasons in a day” occur in Linlithgow with the hailstones “rattling” off the roof as we got ready.
As is “part and parcel” of a second team, numbers and personnel change from week to week and there were only 50% of the team that narrowly lost to Currie the previous week on duty on Saturday.
That said, despite a delay to starting the contest with no appointed referee appearing, with the original fixture being cancelled, Dougie Thomson stepped in to replace the whistler and a focused Reds 2s received the ball playing towards the Railway Line in dry’ish conditions!
Straight from their own kick off, and the resulting play, Kirkcaldy spilled the ball into touch and we had our first line-out of the game. This was deftly won, with a one-handed flip, by Neil Lockhart resulting in a kick down field being gathered and the opposition making it through our defence to our 22’ where their forwards had numerous attempts to breach our line for them all to be repelled by some strong work from the home pack and a great kick to touch from Gregor McLean taking the pressure off of us.
Neil repeated his previous dexterity and the steal was made with a great midfield run created by Alex Dunlop resulting in the first scrum of the match, which were uncontested due to a warm up injury to the Kirkcaldy Prop.
Some scrappy play ensued with both teams making some trivial knock-ons with very little ground being made. From one of these scrums on half way the ball made its way out to Euan Curran, at Centre, who perfectly times his pass, drawing his opposite number to set up his playing partner, Calum Lindsay who cut a great line and out-paced 2 defenders to score after 9 mins and Gregor made the full set 7-0
Another line-out followed after the kick off and Stu Young, again, found his man at the front of the line out and Euan made more metres in the midfield. Great tackling from Aiden Mochrie and Euan saw us gain a penalty and a proceeding line-out. From the “basket-ball” attempts from Kirkcaldy at this play we won the ball back, but during the clear out Ally Walker suffered a reoccurrence of his shoulder injury from the previous match and was replaced by Ross Findlater in his favoured No8 position.
Play continued in the opposition’s 22’ with Kirkcaldy kicking clear only for the ball to be gathered by Euan who made another mazy run, linking in with the support of Ross who found Stu on the wing who then made the scoring pass for Alex D to touch down in the corner on 16 mins – No conversion 12-0
In the next 10 minutes of play Linlithgow were camped in the opposition’s half, but some enforced errors at the breakdown, saw us cough up cheap ball at breakdowns after some good driving play from the forwards and swift handling from the backs. When the Kirkcaldy backline did get the ball, they always looked dangerous and our defensive numbers were low on the outside and this allowed them to use the extra man and score on 25 mins – Conversion success – 12-5
We continued to pin them back in their own 22 after a Gregor penalty gave us a throw in there. From the resulting line-out take the forwards executed a great, planned driving maul for 10 yards which then allowed Colin Devlin to break with the ball and set up the ruck for Scrum Half Euan McCartney to quickly feed the backline with Fraser Miller making the touch down in the left-hand corner on 29 mins after rapid hands feeding the Linlithgow Winger – No conversion – 17-5
The first half played out with Kirkcaldy attacking, but through our strong rucking and, potentially, through their own inability to string any telling passes together the half ended 17-5
Changes were made at the start of the second half with Adam Scott coming on for the hard-working Aiden and Struan McLean coming on in his unaccustomed position of Wing for Fraser and Matty Sommerville replacing Alex D who had taken a knock.
This meant a reshuffle of the pack with Adam & Matty going to the Front Row and Stu taking his place at Flanker, but maintaining his line-out duties when our first scrum, which was still uncontested, occurring after our kick-off not going the requisite 10 yards.
Our basic passing, and catching, was letting us down as we through the ball around like the All Blacks, but not to the same success and we struggled to find our own players in these moves! This seemed to spur on the men from Fife who were driving strongly at us and held us back in our last quarter of the pitch.
We now had contested scrums, with the fit again Prop on the pitch, and from this first, true contest we drove the challengers back 8 yards, stealing their put-in with Ross to appear with the ball, finding Ewen Mitchell who made a great midfield break only for him to fail in finding his support, resulting in a knock-on.
Kirkcaldy won their own scrum and their Stand Off made a cross-field kick for their pacey Left Winger to catch the bounce and score after 11 mins – perhaps too much ball watching on our side – Conversion made – 17-12
From our next line-out we secured the ball and it made its way out the back division only for another handling error to gift possession to Kirkcaldy who passed well and scored after 17 mins in the left-hand corner, again No conversion 17-17
Ross secured our restart, with the pack tidying up and setting the platform for Gregor to feed Ewen who made good yards again, passing inside to the support of Euan who was just caught short of the line with Aidan Wan seeing the opportunity to pick the ball from the ruck and score under the posts – No conversion – 22-17
The restart from Kirkcaldy went deep into our own half where Ross gathered and crashed through their forwards. The platform was set and Gregor fed Ewen who made another run deep into their territory only for the support to knock on the ball. From this scrum Kirkcaldy made a break down the slope only to be thwarted by a Euan tackle with a resulting scrum to them.
We pressurised them well and Ross securing the ball from the resulting play, Stu making good inroads too. The ball was recycled well, but a long miss pass didn’t make its receiver and we were pushed back, deep into our own half with another fortuitous knock on giving the Reds the put in at the scrum.
Dev took a rest and our final finisher, Kieran Wright came on who made an immediate impact on taking the ball forward in the midfield. This gave us good position for the forwards to work at 3 plays before the ball went out wide for Struan to score and Gregor adding the 2 points – 29-17
From the resulting kick off, the ball was gathered by Alex McHardy and fed out the line for Aiden, who had returned to the field, to link with Gregor who fed Callum who then ran three quarters of the pitch to score his second of the day, evading 4 erstwhile tacklers to dot down – Conversion made – 36-17
We defended the final 4 mins well, nullifying many phases of attack, with a stronger focus on our jobs of getting off the line, putting the assailants down and backwards with the attackers being reduced to playing only within 10 yards.
Final Score – 36-17 to the victorious Reds
A great display from the team with everyone contributing to the win. Euan Curran being Man of the Match for his deft breaks and tackling strongly in defence. Our Forwards also played well, with Neil, Ewen and Ross showing up, Stu with assured line out throwing and the rest of the pack who put in a great shift, although we slightly took our foot of the gas at the start of the second half, but regained our composure and understanding of how we should play as the half progressed.
Some work to be done on our defensive positions and scanning of what is in front of us, reducing the amount of “Hail Mary” passes that we attempt and ensuring that we stay strong in the tackle and secure our own ball and not allow it to be stripped when we are tackled.
Here’s to Lasswade next week and to build on this great success!