Cumnock Tournament

Marr S1 travelled to Cumnock hoping to cap a good first season of Midi Rugby with victory at the Cumnock Tournament.

What was supposed to be a 4-way competition turned into a 3-way event with the withdrawal of Whitecraigs but we knew the hosts and Strathaven would both offer stern tests.

First up were Cumnock who had already disposed of Strathaven by 3 tries to 1. Marr continued our long tradition (back to Mini Rugby) of letting our opponents score first but this one was quick even by our standards as we kicked off, jogged towards our opponents thus giving the receiving Cumnock player all the time in the world to attack us and, as our defence parted like the Red Sea, he ran into score. Fortunately this woke us up and we hit back with an immediate score of our own to restore parity. The rest of the match was far closer than the scoreline suggests with both sides contributing to a hard but fair match with plenty of skill on show from both sides. We ran in 3 more scores before Cumnock got 1 back, only for us to score with the second last play of the game. Our tries came from: Calum Morton, Cameron Mackenzie, Cameron Paterson and 2 from Shaun. Calum Inglis kicked 4 conversions. Final score 19-7 to Marr.

Having beaten Cumnock, the match with Strathaven (who had lost to Cumnock and only had 11 players) should have been straight-forward but Coach Stephen, in the interests of fair play (!), said Strathaven could borrow some players from their S2 side who had finished their matches. As event s would prove this gave Marr a far sterner test as, again, we conceded the first score and Strathaven took an early lead. It took Marr a while before we could peg them back to 3-3 and then we let Strathaven score again. Eventually, in some monsoon-like conditions (without the warmth), Marr conjured up two more scores to end up 11-7 winners with the final score coming right at the end. The tries came from Shaun and Cameron Paterson with 2, Calum Inglis kicked 2 conversions.

With two wins out of two Marr collected the trophy and the medals !

Our thanks to Cumnock for a good afternoon’s rugby and much needed food afterwards. Both matches were close, hard fought affairs but fair play was shown on all sides despite the physical nature of the matches.

Thus endeth the 2014-15 season. With one or two exceptions it has easily been a good first season of youth rugby and we hope to build on this next year. Enjoy your summer !