Linlithgow 35 – 19 Berwick
Saturday 30th September 2023

This week saw arguably the U15s biggest game to date, a top of the table clash with a very handy Berwick outfit with both teams starting the day unbeaten….

Berwick had travelled a fair distance and it had been an early start for them. We however, having home advantage and knowing it was going to be a tough game were expecting to start strongly. However it was all Berwick in the opening exchanges and the Reds defenders looked sluggish. Bad turned to worse and the Reds fell behind to a well worked try from Berwick which was converted, seeing the Reds behind for the first time this season.

This seemed though, to be the stimulus the boys needed and they galvanised themselves and increased their intensity. After some great off loads and hard running, they drew close enough to the line for Duncan to muscle his way over the line and a TJ conversion pulled the scores back to level.

The Reds had now really woken up and the next score was the best of the season. Berwick were tough to break down applying pressure and strong tackling across the pitch. So it was from a line out that the Reds moved the ball wide to the right , then the back row kept the move alive making more meters into the twenty two with some good interplay. The ruck formed and a great pull back from Gregg gave Thomas the space he needed to evade a couple of tackles and put Alfie over in the corner. He was delighted as he been on the pitch for about 30 seconds!

The rest of the half was a ding dong affair with neither side really able to land any further blows and it finished 14-7.

The second half saw some changes with Thomas moving into no8 and Angus C into second row with Christos and Elliot into the front row. Rory after a tough 6 weeks of injury returned at 10. 

The second half started as the first had finished with Berwick pressing hard. The Reds though managed to find some field position from where Rory slipped a last minute pass to Duncan in full flight who still had work to do but dotted down successful and Rory added the extras. 

Rory was enjoying being back and sold an outrageous inside dummy for the next score with no one knowing what had happened as he emerged 1:1 with the fullback who he skipped round and under the posts. 

The last Reds score saw us with a scrum on our line, where in true All Blacks style we threw the ball wide with a neat  loop. The ball though went loose and Ollie managed to grab it and offload to Rory, who showed great balance and footwork and a dash of pace to run the length and effectively finish the contest.

The Reds though did fall away at the end, a lesson they need to learn as Berwick came back with two late scores. Final score 35-19.

MoM this week was Rory with two scores and an assist that took the game away from Berwick.

Today was a patchy performance but the Reds showed a great togetherness  to come back from a score down. There were some brilliant passages of play, good structure at times and things we’d worked on in training were visible. Equally there were flashes of individual excellence across the team! This game though offered a lot of opportunities to learn and plenty to work on in training. Well done Reds, enjoy the result, top of the table with one game to go before the play offs. Beware though  there are more tough fixtures to come!