Apologies to our u18 players, but this is the only photo of your team that I was provided with! I was told it’s your coaching team as they see themselves! Maybe someone could provide me with an action shot featuring players next time. (ED)

U18s win away in Conference

Morrisons  10 – 32  Linlithgow

Saturday 05 September 2026

Report by Nick Smith

Usually trying to get adolescents out of bed early on a Saturday morning for a trip to Morrisons is, frankly, a waste of effort. However this wasn’t a routine grocery shopping trip, this was our first outing in the conference and the boys were keen to get started. The energy on the bus was a little subdued, but once we were warming up the energy increased to the required level.

In the first half I think its fair to say that Morrisons brought the weather and we brought the rugby. With Cammy installed as captain, flanked by vice captains Greg and Ewan, we kicked off. Immediately we piled on the pressure. Morrisons knocked on, trying to play in their own 22 and we took possession. What followed was straight off the training field as we went through the phases, with our pods of forward making dents in the strong Morrisons defence and our backs probing for a way through. A little more patience and we would have made the pressure pay.

But eventually we were over the line with a great run from Duncan and conversion from Joe. And it wasn’t long before we were over again with Angus C showing a few of his moves before dotting down for Joe to add the extras.

Two more tries followed from Callum D who found himself in the right place at the right time to finish off a break from Joe and some team pressure on the line.

This was a good half of rugby. We kept our structure well both in attack and defence. When Morrisons did break our defence was strong with Arran making some of trade mark “man and ball tackles” to keep them out. Joe also played some great heads up rugby kicking into space giving Scott the opportunity to chase and put pressure on his opposite number.

The second half saw us make a few changes. Connor came into the front row to join Ali to prop up the scrum, Max slotted in at scrum half.

This was a tougher affair for us. Morrisons came back into it and gave us some real problems. Some hard tackling from Alfie, Murray and Callum R kept us in the game at times but it eventually the pressure told and they scored twice to bring the score closer that we wanted. We also lost a couple of players to injury with Finlay M and Zach having to leave the pitch prematurely after both putting in a heavy shift in the second row. It was good to se Alex overcome a back injury to get back on the pitch.

We did find our rhythm again though and some fast feet from Joe saw him tear away from his opposite number and score in the corner. Next came our try of the game. Angus T started the move with a weaving run through their defence, Duncan then looked up and kicked into the space on the right for Ali B to gather, step two defenders and score.

Overall this was a good performance from the boys. We will need to think about how we maintain the pressure on teams in the second half. Was it complacency, fitness or concentration? That can wait for Tuesday’s training session. There were some great individual performances too. Finlay A was a nuisance on the loose and on any other day would have won a fair few turnovers. Joe played some great heads up rugby using the options available to him. Duncan grew into his role at fly half and began to boss the game. However player of the match this week goes to Jamie who made a series of strong carries into a strong Morrisons defence and also got stuck into the tougher work needed at the bottom the rucks.

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It doesn’t come much tougher than this!

Scottish Schools Cup

Dollar Academy  62 – 10  Linlithgow

Wednesday 09 September 2026

It doesn’t come much tougher than this! An already strong Dollar team has been bolstered this season by the signing of 5 Glasgow Warriors u16s from last season on full board scholarships. Nick Smith penned a few thoughts on the game:

This was a tough game on Wednesday and left us with some tired and bruised bodies. However it was a good game us to learn from. As well as a lot of positives. It was great that we kept heart and played right to the end of the game, scoring in the final minutes. As the ref said we took the moral victory. We do have a player of the match. This time it goes to Arran whose tackling was immense in the last line of defence.