Mackie v Ellon

Another beautiful day to play rugby the weather has been kind to us so far. The game started off with Mackie kicking off, the first exchange saw Ellon knock on resulting in a scrum to Mackie. Finlay Jacobs passed to Ethan Thomas who broke through the Ellon defence and made good yardage and offloaded to Drew Christie who scored under the posts. Robbie Crighton converted the try. Play continued with good continuity between forwards and backs, communication and ball retention was working well, the forwards were working hard with strong runs coming from Nathan on his return from injury. I must also comment on the team work shown by the forwards on winning the ball back in the rucks and mauls they are definitely forming a formidable unit, willing to work for each other. There was also good vision shown from Finlay Sweetnam who put in a cross field kick just inches too long for Aiden Smith to gather, the ball went into touch for an Ellon lineout. Mackie won the lineout and the ball was passed to Nathan who charged for the line and scored, kick missed by Robbie.

Ellon re started and the ball was recovered by Fergus Inglis who put his head down and made a devastating run towards the Ellon defence, he broke through and offloaded on the 22 to Drew who then passed the ball out to his back row partner Fraser Lindsay who knocked on when taking heavy contact. Ellon cleared their lines from the scrum, The line out was won by Levi Fin J passed the ball to Fraser who made a break and offloaded to Robbie who broke into the attacking line at pace and then passed to Aiden who scored in the corner. The kick was missed by Robbie.

The game continued with both teams fighting hard for the ball. The next score came from another lineout with the ball being passed to Drew who powered over the line. The Mackie lineout was working well with Levi calling the shots in attack and defence. Mackie were awarded a penalty, which was taken quickly by Drew who offloaded to Liam Dreelan who worked the ball further up the field, Liam offloaded to Finlay J who then passed it through the back line, and the backs performed the Buda ball move which worked like a dream with Robbie Crighton cutting a line at pace to score. Nice to see moves from the training field work during game time. The Mackie pressure was beginning to tell with most of the rugby being played in the Ellon 22. Ellon broke up an attack resulting in a 22 drop out; the ball was kicked and recovered by Fin J who passed the ball to Liam who was at full pace Liam proved very hard for the Ellon boys to stop resulting in him running almost the length of the pitch to score.

The next try came from an Ellon line out ,Ellon knocked the ball on, the ball was recovered by Mackie playing under advantage the ball was taken on by Clarence who offloaded the ball was passed out to the wing and Aiden scored under the posts. The next passage of play was played between the two 10m lines, Ellon knocked on the resulting scrummage was won by Mackie Drew Christie received the ball and charged through the Ellon defence to score.

Halftime came and Mackie rung the changes using all the available subs. The halftime talk was easy more of the same, and to keep focused. Ellon re started and with the coaches works still fresh in Drew’s head (more of the same) Drew caught the ball from the kick off and ran right through un-challenged to score under the posts. The support on the side-lines took a collective deep breath when he scored in amazement.

Ellon re started the game the ball was knocked on from Mackie , Scrum to Ellon the scrum was won by Ellon the Mackie back row put a stop to the move and from the ensuing ruck the ball was passed to Drew who was having a try fest by this stage of the game. Mackie were having all the possession and were trying various moves, it was also good to see the boys trying to make decisions on the pitch in regard to kicking but we need to work on when and where and what type of kick to use during a match. On a positive note regarding kicking Fin J put in a great box kick which luckily bounced off an Ellon player into the hands of Drew who took the ball on and offloaded to Robbie who scored under the posts. The attacks kept on coming with 2 x phases from the forwards the ball was passed out to Eoin in the centre who outpaced the defence to score.

The attacks kept on coming with more phases from the forwards the ball was picked up by Fraser who pop passed the ball out to Ethan in the centre who outpaced the defence and scored with a spectacular dive between the posts which looked quit painful but he was smiling all the same. The game was nonstop attack at this point Nathan got onto the end of a pass and scored under the posts. Ellon restarted and the ball was recovered by Mackie. Robbie kicked the ball across the field for Aiden to run onto Aiden couldn’t recover the ball and hacked it on for Nathan to recover and score. This was the last act of the match. There were many positives to take from this game; communication team work and discipline were all worth noting. Things to work on scrummaging, Decision making regarding kicking, a very good result well done to everyone.