Mackie U15 v Grammar from groung level

Great start to the game today, Mackie kick off and the entire team was ruled offside for being in front of the kicker. Giving a penalty to Grammar, visions of the normal slow start by Mackie was creeping in. But no the ball was recovered by Mackie and was passed along the line to Aiden Smith on the wing, who still had a lot to do but lit the afterburners and scored in the corner the try was converted by Robbie Crighton. There were a few exchanges of fierce rucking and tackling by both teams. Mackie were getting into the groove working through the phases, resulting in the ball being passed to Ethan Thomas who broke the Grammar defence to score, from the re start Ethan Thomas fielded the ball and pinned his ears back and ran the length of the pitch to score his second try. Mackie did not let the Grammar side settle with wave after wave of attacks from Fraser Lindsay, Drew Christie and Ben Morrison. The two Fins were linking well to bring the backs into play and there were also good inter play between the forwards and backs. The 4th try came just after a scrum when Fin S slipped a pass to Drew who powered through the Grammar defence. This was the pattern of the game with Mackie being camped in the Grammar 22 for long periods with probing runs from Robbie, JJ and Aiden the next try came from Ben who came into the line from fullback and cut a good angle to score. The next passage of play saw several scrums from knock on’s , scrums are an area that we need to work on, as it was a bit of a lottery as to who came out on top; Fin J was on his game and needed to be as the ball he got to work with was not the best. The next try came when Drew was in midfield and picked up a ball from the back of a ruck and burst through the Grammar defence to score under the posts this try was converted by Robbie. The second half started with a change in a few key positions Harry Grant and Ethan replaced the two Fins, they started off a bit slowly but both grew in confidence as the half progressed, it’s safe to say we have strength in depth in the half back department. The forwards were boosted by Josh S and George replacing Mathew and Clarence. The second half followed the same pattern as the first with the first score coming from Fraser who powered to the line from just inside the 22 with 3 Grammar defenders hanging onto him for dear life. He landed on the ball and with the weight of the defenders landing on him proceeded to get winded. Fin J come on to replace Fraser until he got his breath back at centre with Ben M moving into the vacated No 8 position. The first scrum amused the home side line as Ben wasn’t quite sure where to put his head. The game progressed with one of many line out balls won by Levi , and the ball was passed inside to Euan R who ran up the blindside to score. There were outstanding performances from our tight forwards with Fregus making ground every time he got the ball , great skills shown by Dominic when receiving a pass and giving it at pace , and Levi who was always there at the break down and running support lines and made more tackles than he missed. The next try came from a line out won by Levi the ball was passed out along the line, JJ made a couple of attempts to get over the line but the defence was standing there ground , the ball was recycled and passed to Robbie who looped around to score he also converted his own try. The next try came from sustained pressure and phase play from the forwards with Ben scoring under the posts the try was converted by Robbie. The following play was highly contested in between the 10m lines with good rucking from both sides a few handling errors resulting in scrums for both sides. From a Mackie scrum Harry G made a break and offloaded to Ethan who scored in the corner. Not to be out done by the rest of the team the next attack saw Eoin Vaughan join the back line from fullback at pace and ran through a very demoralised defence to score under the posts the conversion was kicked by Robbie Crighton. The boys are working well together and the performances have been showing this, what makes todays result better than the others was the clean sheet; there is still a lot to work on at training , body positions , scrummaging, and back row team work and positioning in open play.