Marr progress in the Cup in Ayrshire Derby

It was a cold crisp day at Millbrae, with a good vociferous crowd eager for a good rugby battle.

It was Ayr that caught Marr cold with five minutes of pressure that resulted in Johnny McCorkindale finding himself in an overlap position to open the scoring for Ayr.

Marr now with this early warning, woke up and kept good possession in the forwards to score two drive over tries, through Ewan Bulger and William Farquhar.

Marr’s backline now got in on the act with a well worked try from Richard Dalgleish.

The best try of the match was an absolute cracker. Ayr cleared their lines to the half way line. Marr full back Greg Montgomery collected the high ball and started an attack. With fifteen defenders before him Greg cut through the Ayr’s defensive lines, like a knife through butter, to run through and score between the posts. All this with no hand being laid upon him.

Colin Sturgeon kicked three of Marr conversions making the half time score 26 points to 7.

Marr now wanted to kick on early in the second half, however this did not happen as Ayr managed 10 minutes of solid possession that pinned Marr back into their 22m.

Ayr’s pressure eventually paid off when Morgan Leatherbarrow drove over the Marr line.
Marr quickly answered back with a well worked forwards try, this time it was Marr’s Robert Brown who got the honours.
Robert then turned form hero to villain as he was yellow carded for a high tackle, that the Marr support thought was legal.

Ayr now looked to punish Marr with their extra man advantage. However Marr’s Captain Conor Bickerstaff had other ideas and scored two tries in fairly quick succession. The first was Conor spotting a gap in the Ayr defence, the second was pure pace and power straight through a couple of Ayr tacklers.

Marr were now back to a full complement of players and looked to get over 50 points. However it was Ayr that finished the stronger team.
McCorkindale got his second and on the final whistle James Baird dashed through a lazy defence to make the score look much more respectable.

Craig Redpath has got a bit of psychological work to do with the team, but he has time to do this as, we now have a free week next weekend, before we play Glasgow Hawks away in the Premiership.

Ayr will be the happier of the two camps as their young team fronted up well and showed a never say die attitude.
At the end of the day it is the Troon boys that march on to the last eight in the Scottish Cup!

Marr Rugby 1st XV man of the match: Conor Bickerstaff (sponsored by CCL Logistics)

Marr Rugby 1st XV scorers
Tries: Will Farquhar; Ewan Hamilton-Bulger; Richard Dalgleish; Greg Montgomery; Robert Brown and Conor Bickerstaff (2)
Conversions: Colin Sturgeon (5)
Yellow Card: Robert Brown
Man of the match: Conor Bickerstaff but Benedict Grant ran him close.