Marr College vs QVS

Saturday saw Marr College S2 play their first competitive match on the new 3G pitch when we hosted Queen Victoria School from Dunblane. With little wind, no rain, a 3G surface and the full-sized pitch everything pointed to plenty of attacking rugby.

Marr kicked off and quickly we saw one of QVS’s tactics as QVS kicked the ball deep where it was fielded by Calum Morton, a 2nd QVS kick and another field and individual run by Calum gave us a line-out deep in QVS’s half but we couldn’t make it count and some poor Marr tackling let QVS gain yards before a turnover gathered the ball back for Marr and a run from Shaun Smith led to another line-out near the QVS 22 metre line. This time Marr won the line-out on the QVS throw but there followed a scrappy period of play with knock-ons and scrums before another Marr turnover led to the ball being worked out wide with David Craig passing to Shaun who ran in for the first try, converted by Harry. Marr led 4-0.

From the restart, the play resumed with Euan McLuckie catching the kick-off and running back at QVS. A lost line-out and 2 lost rucks led to QVS kicking the ball and setting up a scrum deep in Marr’s half. Marr won the ball back but a couple of over-laps were wasted as players failed to pass the ball early enough. A couple of line-outs ended with clever play that saw Thomas break round the front of the line-out and gain yards before Scott Rodger was stopped just short. A knock-on led to a QVS scrum which Marr turned over, won their own scrum and with Cameron Paterson stopped short, Scott Rodger crashed over for the 2nd try. Harry converted again. Marr led 8-0

Form the next restart Chris Browett, Cameron Paterson and Shaun Smith linked up to gain another threatening line-out which Marr won and the ball went through the hands with Euan McLuckie going over for another score, also converted by Harry, for a 12-0 lead.

Marr scored almost straight from the re-start as the ball was fielded and passed to allow Shaun to sprint in for his 2nd and Marr’s 4th try. The score at the end of the 1st period was 15-0.

Marr rung the changes at the start of the 2nd period as all 5 subs came on. A series of mistakes (poor drop-out 22 after QVS’s kick-off, followed by a failure to pass the ball out wide, a forward pass and a series of missed tackles) led to QVS getting a penalty 5m out which they recycled and went over for the first score of the 2nd period. Marr’s lead was cut to 15-3. Normal service was then resumed as the 2nd period resembled much of the first as QVS kicked and Marr ran at them. Harry made a good run for the line and was well supported by Scott Toner who went over for our first score in this period. This was followed by tries for Scott Rodger, Shaun and Calum (scoring almost straight from the re-start) with Harry converting the 1st score and Scott Stirton the 2nd and 4th scores to end the period 30-3.

The final period saw Marr lose focus for a while with QVS scoring early as tackles went in too high and were handed off. Marr scored shortly after the re-start as Logan went on one of his across the field runs but linked up with Scott Rodger who took it all the way forward to score. Harry converted. Marr then missed more tackles to let QVS score again before tries from Calum (converted by Scott Stirton), Shaun (his fourth) and Cameron Paterson (converted by Scott Stirton) led to the game finishing 45-10 for Marr.

All in all a good day’s work for all 20 boys who turned up, and some much needed match practice after a 6 week gap. Marr won as our team had more strength in depth. QVS had a couple of good players who caused us problems when we missed first tackles or tried to tackle too high. Main lessons to be learnt are tackling too high doesn’t work, on a big pitch like the 3G the ball needs to go through the hands to the wide men more quickly and we still butcher too many overlaps (we missed both a 5v1 and a 3v1 towards the end of the match). All in all a good morning’s work and we hope the spectators enjoyed the game in the new arena. Thanks to Mark Simpson for dusting off his whistle and looking out his loudest rugby shirt to take charge of the game.