Fine win for U16s

Linlithgow  36 -12  Peebles

Saturday 24th August 2024

Report by Nick Smith

According to Visit Scotland, Peebles is “certainly no ordinary town with its spectacular scenery, shopping, cafés, events and outdoors activities to keep you entertained all year”. According to Linlithgow RFC Under 16s Peebles is “certainly no ordinary team with an array of fast backs and gnarly forwards who kept us to an entertaining draw last year”.

So we knew what was coming and were well aware that we would need to step up our game from last week.

With that in mind we opted to kick off and then put them under some early pressure.  The plan was good but Peebles had other ideas.  Despite a number of big hits, with Alexander R leading the way, Peebles had the early share of the ball and caused us the problems.  

However once we got our hands on the ball we began to put our game plan into action.  The forwards gave us good go forward and we soon found ourselves in Peebles 22. Finlay M – who was out on the left wing – saw the space out and called for the ball.  Out it came through Thomas and Duncan and on to Finlay himself.  He was felled just short of the line but Joe was happy to finish the move from the resulting ruck and dived in to score in the corner.  We were off.

We then had to suck up some considerable pressure. Peebles came back at us strongly. A number 8 pick up from the back of a scrum just inside our own half, led to their first try.  Their second followed soon after as their scrum half spotted a gap around the sides of the ruck and was through to score .

However we had faith in our game plan.  Again the forwards gave us the platform we needed but this time from a scrum.  Alfie shifted the ball on to Thomas who saw enough of a gap to squeeze through and sped on to the try line for his try of the afternoon.  

At the kick off Peebles failed to kick it the 10 meters and paid the price.  Another good scrum gave Alfie the platform to place an inch perfect kick just short of their try line.  Scott was quick on the chase and pounced first to score.  

We finished the first third in the lead.

The second third was a tougher affair and we went through long spells without seeing the ball.  However our tackling was strong and we kept Peebles at bay for the entirety.

When we did get our hands on the ball we played well.  Some good decision making meant we moved the ball wide when there was space, some swifter hands and a little more composure might have seen us score a few more tries.

As it was, we took two good chances.  Greg powered over from a tap penalty for his score and Alex E took a lovely floated pass  from Thomas to beat 3 defenders out wide to score in the corner.

There was also some lovely offloading between Ewan, Alex E and the ever present Angus C.  It would be good to see more of this in the games to come, as despite some strong tackling from Peebles they simply had no way of dealing with this.

Also of note was Mika’s debut – not just for Linlithgow but his first ever game of rugby.  He took skills honed on the American Football field and applied them to his rugby.  This included a couple of fantastic bullocking runs and some brave tackling.  We’d love to see more of this.

I think it’s fair to say the final third saw us tire us little and we let Peebles back into the game – not to score – but certainly to put us under pressure.  However the only points scored were our’s as Ewan charged over from a tap penalty.

It was great to see Jayden make his debut on the wing and it would good even better to see him get a bit more of the ball in future games.  

A few mentions this week have to Conor and Cameron who both put in a great performance in their first game of the season.  Conor has clearly been working on his defence and made some really strong tackles, while Cameron was more than happy to carry the ball hard into the Peebles defence.  Another player who seemed to enjoy a strong carry was Callum who made some hard yards often breaking two or three tackles in the process.

Cammy had a strong game in the back row getting through a lot of work forcing a number of handy turnovers.  Liam brought some energy to the third quarter with a couple of searing breaks – one of them with only one boot on!

Alex E was an ever present threat on the wing, proving his pace and guile when taking his try.

Player of the match this week has to go to Ewan for his tackling, his constant carrying as well as some of his passing which enabled others to get into space.

This was a much improved performance from last week and we really started to manage the game and impose ourselves on the opposition.  We may need to find a little more composure at times but this will come as our confidence and team understanding improves.

No game next weekend and instead we’ll be preparing for our midweek cup game.