Stornoway and Caithness under 14s line up

A strong Caithness U14 side made the long trip down from the far North at the weekend to return a fixture played in Thurso in October.

That match saw Caithness beat a weakened Stornoway side but with a squad of 20 players this time round the boys were confident that this game would end more favourably.

Many of the players are still playing in only their first few games of rugby and that inexperience showed in the first third of the match with the game being quite messy, but it was much the same from both teams with the damp conditions resulting in a lot of dropped balls.

As the match went on both teams started to hold onto the ball better and this resulted in Stornoway’s first try with a soft pop pass from Drew Maynard in midfield releasing No. 8 Shaun Maclean who went in to score the first of his three tries.

This was followed by Lewis Macleod’s first conversion of the day. Some brave running from Ewan Macleod on the left wing provided some go forward ball along with strong carries from props James Morrison and Andrew Hughson up front.

The game remained close throughout but Stornoway made a number of terrific late covering tackles to prevent the opposition from scoring.

This kind of work rate in defence combined with another hat-trick of tries from Duncan Macphail and an impressive long distance solo effort from Todd Morrison saw Stornoway win the match 7-3 on tries.

Stornoway’s best try of the day came from a turnover as a result of Todd and Nathanael Millar’s hard work at the breakdown before the ball was set up in midfield and then passed wide with Shaun Maclean scoring in the corner.

With the try scorers taking the glory it is definitely worth mentioning the work done by the whole forward pack to fight for and secure the ball providing a good platform for the rest of the team.

The back line was commanded well with the more experienced James Macleod playing at inside centre linking well with the outside backs.

A special mention to those who played their first games for the club in the form of Seoras Chlad, Aaron Ingram and twins James and Lewis Mackay.

A big thank you to all the family and friends of the players who came down to support the players.

Caithness also took a small squad of six U16 players who mixed in with Stornoway’s U16 side to play a 13 a-side game which acted as a good warm up for this weekend’s fixture against Orkney RFC, which will also be their last of the year.

A very hard fought and close encounter with only 2 points separating the sides at full time.

To ease travel for both clubs the U14’s and U16’s this week’s fixtures against Orkney will be played in Invergordon.

Try scorers: Duncan Macphail – 3, Shaun Maclean – 3, Todd Morrison – 1