Reds U18s: Strong District Representation and Saturday Report
3 Reds feature in Edinburgh U18 win
Our three musketeers above acquitted themselves well in Edinburgh colours at the Oriam this afternoon, contributing to a fairly comprehensive 48-24 victory over a Borders and East Lothian team who kept fighting right to the end.
Great representation for Linlithgow in an Edinburgh squad dominated by the private schools, with our 3 boys joining 3 Boroughmuir and 2 Currie as the only state school representatives.
Lewis McGill was his typical combative self, putting in some crunching tackles, was very effective in the line-out and scrum in a dominant performance from the Edinburgh pack.
Alfie Muir ran very good lines, creating space for Edinburgh’s first try and with a couple of searing line breaks must have been among the leading players in metres made.
Callum Hall defended his channel well against an evasive and fleet-footed Borders winger and then showed his pace and skill on the ball to finish off a brace of second-half tries.
On Saturday, minus the three players above…
U18s start and end well, but…
Boroughmuir 54 – 14 Linlithgow
Saturday 18th January 2025
Report by Graeme Miller
Saturday’s game for the u18’s, away at Boroughmuir didn’t go the way we wanted. With the home side scoring early, after 2 minutes and 6 minutes plus a conversion, we were left a bit stunned by the pace of the home side. However, our boys started to get some possession and put phases of play together. Then it started to look a fairer contest with winger Alex scoring after beating his opposite number. Ethan, from full back, slotted the conversion. 12-7 it remained until on 30 minutes our poor tackling let Boroughmuir in for a try under our posts.
19-7 at half time
After making our only two subs, Boroughmuir again showed us their pace and strength by blowing us off the pitch with 3 tries in the first 10 minutes. Our boys seemed shell shocked but did pull themselves back into the game with some good phases of possession and play, but the home side’s defence was excellent against our sometimes predictable and pedestrian play. After 20 minutes we let our guard down again, twice in close succession, allowing another two home side tries. 54-7 with still 10 minutes to go!
With nothing more to lose, the Linlithgow boys tried to play from everywhere resulting in some great runs from captain Cammy at No. 8, vice-captain Finn from flanker and Ethan from second row, who also made a brilliant break through the middle of play. Our backs started playing with more pace and depth, Alex from 14 and Ethan from 15 making lots a yardage gain. Ethan also had a great kicking game. All this resulted in break out play and our scrum half, Finlay scrambling over to finish the scoring along with Ethan’s conversion at 54-14.
Lots to work on but some boys definitely stepped up today so some good aspects to look back to. Special mention should also go to Alfie, Calum and Lewis, who were not available today because they are playing for Edinburgh at the Oriam tomorrow against East Lothian and the Borders. Good luck to them.